Eric Norelius and Minnesota Anden, or ''the Minnesota Spirit''

Eric Norelius and M i n n e s o t a A n d e n ,
or "the Minnesota Spirit"
B E R N H A R D E R L I NG
In 1848, the first congregation of what became the Augustana
Synod was organized at New Sweden in southeastern Iowa. The
New Sweden settlement had been formed in 1845 by twenty-one
immigrants from Kisa in the province of Östergötland, led by Peter
Cassel. When they formed their congregation, they had no pastor
but managed to persuade Magnus Håkansson, a shoemaker, to be
their lay preacher. He had wanted to prepare for the ministry in
Sweden but had received no encouragement from his shoemaker
father or from anyone else, and he finally decided to emigrate and
joined the Cassel group. Hakansson's lack of sufficient theological
training made him vulnerable as a pastoral leader. Gustaf Unonius,
who had come to Pine Lake, Wisconsin, in 1841, where he later
studied at the nearby Nashotah House and was ordained an Episco­pal
priest, visited New Sweden in 1849 and upbraided Håkansson for
conducting services and administering sacraments without having
been ordained. In 1850 Jonas Hedström, a Methodist, came to New
Sweden and held a series of meetings that resulted in the organization
of a Methodist congregation, with Peter Cassel, the leader of the
New Sweden settlement, becoming one of its members.
Håkansson was ordained by the Synod of Northern Illinois in
1853, but the religious fragmentation of the community continued in
1854, when the Baptist preachers Gustaf Palmqvist and F. O. Nilsson
arrived. Their critique of infant baptism had such a strong effect on
Håkansson that he resigned his ministry and went with others to be
baptized in the Skunk River, which flowed through the settlement.
BERNHARD E R L I N G is professor emeritus in religion at Gustavus Adolphus Col¬
lege. His interests include twentieth-century Swedish theologians, the writings of D a g
Hammarskjold, and Swedish A m e r i c a.
He almost immediately regretted what he had done. Encouraged by
other Lutheran pastors, who by this time had come to work among
the Swedish immigrants, as well as by the remaining members of the
congregation, he took up his work again.1 Soon, however, there were
three churches built along a one-mile stretch of country road, sym­bolic
of the religious divisions among the Swedish immigrants.
A more important center of Swedish Lutheran church life had
begun to develop in Illinois. Lars Paul Esbjörn came to Andover in
1849, and a congregation was organized there in 1850. In 1851 a
congregation was organized in Galesburg, and Tufve Nilsson Hasselquist
came to be its pastor in 1852. Erland Carlsson arrived in Chicago in
1853. O. C. T. Andrén came to Moline in 1856, and Jonas Swensson,
after serving two years in Jamestown, New York, succeeded Esbjörn
in Andover in 1858. In contrast to Magnus Håkansson, all five of
these pastors had received their theological education and ordina­tion
in Sweden and had served congregations before coming to the
United States.2
Swedish immigrants began to arrive in Minnesota in 1851. The
first congregations in St. Paul, Chisago Lake, and Scandia were orga­nized
in 1854 by Pastor Erland Carlsson, who was on a missionary
trip in Minnesota.3 Four years later the Minnesota Conference was
organized with thirteen congregations served by five pastors, of whom
only two were as yet ordained. The other three were licensed and
would be ordained in 1859. The five were Peter Beckman, Johan
Boreen, Peter Carlson, Pehr Cederstam, and Eric Norelius. A l l of
these pastors, like the five pastors in Illinois, were born in Sweden,
but none of them had completed his theological education or been
ordained in Sweden.4
What does all of this have to do with M i n n e s o t a a n d e n , or "the
Minnesota spirit"? What, for that matter, does the term mean? While
one will not find it discussed to any great extent in written sources, it
was part of Augustana's oral tradition.5 It referred to how Minnesota
differed from other parts of the synod, especially Illinois. Among
other things, it had to do with tendencies toward separatism, which
the leaders of the Augustana Synod thought they saw in the Minne­sota
Conference, especially as the conference began to grow in strength.
Eric Norelius, in his biography of Hasselquist, writes that Hasselquist
53
stressed centralization. He recommended that the Swedish Lutherans
have one synod, one college and seminary, one church paper, and
one central administration, and that there should be as much geo­graphic
concentration of the Swedish Lutheran congregations as pos­sible.
Norelius said such a plan would work only if there were good
understanding between the center of the synod and the periphery.
Furthermore, this idea of centralization could be too narrowly con­ceived.
Synod leaders in Illinois at that time were opposed to immi­grants
moving to Minnesota. They were against congregations orga­nizing
a conference in Minnesota. They didn't think there should be
another college in Minnesota. A n d they were against Norelius trying
to publish his own paper in Minnesota.6 That Norelius and others in
Minnesota did not agree with Augustana leaders in Illinois is cer­tainly
one explanation for what is called M i n n e s o t a a n d e n.
Another possible explanation is that M i n n e s o t a anden referred to
a somewhat different piety in Minnesota, a piety that was more lay
oriented, a piety strongly influenced by C. O. Rosenius.7 In such a
case, this could have had something to do with the pastoral leader­ship
in Minnesota during the first decades of the life of the congrega­tions
that became the Minnesota Conference. While the names Esbjörn
and Hasselquist, perhaps also Erland Carlsson and Jonas Swensson,
are well known to those interested in the origins of the Augustana
Synod, the names of the Minnesota pastors, except for Eric Norelius,
are not so familiar—Peter Beckman, Johan Boreen, Peter Carlson,
Pehr Cederstam. Since Johan Boreen died in 1865 after a ministry of
only seven years, the names of Carl Hedengran, ordained in 1860,
and Andrew Jackson, ordained in 1861, can be added to these.
How did these pastors differ from the first Illinois pastors? They
obviously were not as well educated. Several of them had undergone
periods of spiritual struggle in connection with their call to the min­istry.
They were not as vulnerable as was Magnus Håkansson to
efforts of Methodists and Baptists to gain members from their congre­gations,
but they also had to determine what it meant to be a Lutheran.
We can learn a good deal about these pastors from the autobio­graphical
and biographical information collected by Eric Norelius
and published in his history of the Swedish Lutheran congregations.8
54
Another source is the obituaries published in the annual volumes of
K o r s b a n e r e t . 9
When one inquires about the education of these pastors before
their emigration from Sweden, one must remember, since they were
born between the years 1822 and 1833, that general public educa­tion
providing for a six-year elementary school did not begin in
Sweden until 1842. Prior to that time there was a law stating that
parents and guardians should teach their children to read with the
aid of an A - B - C book, but only some parents were able to do this
very effectively. Some education was offered in the parishes in con­nection
with confirmation instruction, which centered largely on
Luther's Catechism.1 0 Those who could not read very well heard the
catechism read to them and memorized it. There were schools in
urban communities, but to attend them the rural children had to live
away from home. Those who advanced as far as the g y m n a s i u m,
roughly equivalent to our high school plus a year of junior college
today, would learn a good deal of Latin and some Greek. Passing a
final examination, known as the s t u d e n t e x a m e n , would qualify one for
entrance to the universities of Uppsala or Lund, where one could
study theology, law, or medicine or do advanced study in the arts
and sciences. What follows is an account of how the first Minnesota
pastors, given the educational opportunities available to them in
Sweden and later in the United States, became prepared for their
ministry.
T H E MINNESOTA PASTORS
Peter Beckman (1822-1915), from Enånger in Hälsingland, whose
mother was not able to teach him to read, received his earliest
education from another woman in the parish.1 1 A t the age of thirteen
he was apprenticed to a tailor. He received confirmation instruction
in his home congregation but doesn't tell us what he learned, except
to say that he had a bad conscience about his sinful behavior during
this period, while the good emotions stimulated by reading and hear­ing
God's word did not last. There were readers of pietist literature
(läsare) in the congregation. Their critique of the behavior of Peter
and his friends made him concerned about his sins, though he did
55
not know how he could become truly pious, nor did he want to
abandon his comrades. The pastors, who lived like others in the
congregation, were judged by the lay readers as being "without God
in the world." In 1840, when Peter was eighteen, the parish received
a pastor more spiritually minded than his predecessors, but years
passed while Peter's anxiety about his salvation gradually increased.
Just before Advent in 1845 he was awakened by a terrifying dream.
His first thought was, "What if I had awakened to find myself in
hell!" His frightened cries woke others in the house, to whom he
explained that God's wrath over his sins was tormenting him. He was
so restless that he was unable to work. During the months that
followed he prayed and read books that strongly condemned sin. He
thought he was having some success in overcoming his evil heart,
but evil desires returned. He had begun to read the periodical P i e t i s t e n ,
edited by Carl Olof Rosenius, and found in the Easter issue a hymn,
"Uppstånden är Kristus, gudomliga l i v " (Christ is risen, divine life),
by C. G . Cassel (1783-1866).12 As he read the hymn, his eyes were
opened and he realized that his sins had been cast upon Jesus. Before
he went to rest that evening, he was able to thank God for the
forgiveness of sins. His spiritual life was thereafter transformed, and
he was able to find satisfaction in his work.
By this time each parish had its own school, and Beckman began
to teach, for a year as a substitute and then with a regular appoint­ment,
though he doesn't tell us how he had become qualified to
teach. After teaching for five years, he withdrew from the Church of
Sweden -to join a separatist group that wanted to continue to use the
1689 Catechism and the 1695 Psalmbok (hymnal) rather than ac­cepting
the 1811 Catechism and Wallin's Psalmbok of 1819. Beckman
taught for two separatist congregations, and, when their pastor left to
become a Baptist, he became the leader of these congregations. A t
this time withdrawing from the Church of Sweden posed difficulties,
and separatist congregations were unstable. When several members
left these congregations, Beckman's employment was affected. O n 26
November 1854 he married Carin Andersdotter.1 3 Swedish law re­quired
that a married man have regular employment, or else he
would be listed as a vagrant. This Beckman was no longer able to
find. One solution to his problem was emigration. He had been
56
reading H e m l a n d e t , D e t G a m l a och D e t N y a , edited by T. N . Hasselquist
in Galesburg, Illinois, as well as letters sent to friends in Sweden by
Eric Norelius, and he knew there was a free Swedish Lutheran church
in America that probably shared his views about the new Swedish
church books.1 4 He believed that in America it would be possible for
him to remain a Lutheran. When, in 1856, his landlord was emigrat­ing
and offered to pay for his and his wife's passage, they accepted.
Arriving in New York on 29 September, the Beckmans went on
to Chicago and then to Red Wing, where they had to wait a week
until Norelius returned from a synod meeting in Dixon, Illinois. After
hearing one of his sermons, which sounded to them as though they
were hearing Luther himself, they decided to join his congregation.
Norelius asked Beckman to preach in Red Wing and then arranged
for him to begin, on 26 November 1856, serving a congregation in
Stockholm, Wisconsin. In 1857 Beckman received a pastoral license
from the Synod of Northern Illinois. He moved to Spring Garden
and Cannon River, Minnesota, in 1858 and was ordained the follow­ing
year. After ten years in Spring Garden and Cannon River, he
resigned and became a traveling home missionary in Minnesota.
Later he followed the frontier farther west until he spent the last years
of his life in Troy, Idaho. In Beckman's autobiography there is no
reference to any formal theological education. He remained through­out
his life conscious of the inadequacy of his preparation but certain
of his call and of the great need for ministers of word and sacrament,
to which need he sought to respond.15
Nothing is known about the parents and childhood of Johan
Peter Carlsson Boreen (also Boren; 1824-1865), except that he was
born in the city of Borås in Västergötland.16 As a youth he became a
carpenter's apprentice. He was concerned for a time about his salva­tion,
and when he gained spiritual clarity and peace he decided that
he wanted to study to prepare himself for some spiritual ministry. By
now he was past school age, but he enrolled in the secondary school
in Skara, where he completed the first six classes. Norelius states that
Boreen was not intellectually gifted, but he was diligent and perse­vering.
After Skara, Boreen spent some time at Ahlberg's School in
Stockholm, where lay preachers were trained. It was there that he
received his call to come to America. Eric Norelius was seeking an
57
assistant for the work in Goodhue County. Since he had been asked
to raise funds for the Scandinavian professorship in Springfield, Illi­nois,
and also had editorial duties, he needed help. He first corre­sponded
with a man in Västergötland, reputed to be a capable school
teacher. This man was unable to accept a call to America but recom­mended
Johan Carlsson, who did agree to come and arrived in 1858.
In Geneva, Illinois, Johan met Erland Carlsson, who suggested that,
since there would soon be too many Carlssons in the synod, he take
the name Boreen from his home town, Borås. A t the meeting of the
Synod of Northern Illinois in Mendota, a committee examined Boreen
in Greek, New Testament, dogmatics, apologetics, church history,
and homiletics, and was satisfied with his answers to their questions.
This says something about what Boreen had studied and learned in
Skara and Stockholm. He was licensed, began his ministry in Goodhue
County, and was ordained in 1859.
Boreen served as Norelius's assistant until 1860. In that year he
married Hilda Kindgren and was called for one year to be Norelius's
successor at Vasa. Unfortunately, the following year the congregation
refused to renew Boreen's call, wanting instead to have Norelius
come back to them. Norelius says that Boreen was sound doctrinally,
but he had personal faults. He was stubborn and did not want to
compromise. He became involved in a controversy about how to
pay a $200 debt owed by the congregation to the General Synod.
The proposal Boreen strongly supported was to sell pews, and this
proposal prevailed 21-12. When, however, some pews were pur­chased
by persons who did not belong to the congregation, members
were left without places to sit, for which they blamed Boreen. He
also found it hard to be on time. He could arrive a half hour late to
a service and would then preach a sermon that his hearers thought
was unduly long.1 7 Boreen was, however, well regarded by his fellow
pastors and was elected to preside at the meeting of 7-9 October
1858 at Chisago Lake, when the Minnesota Conference was orga­nized.
1 8 In 1861 Boreen was called to be pastor in Stockholm, Wis­consin,
where he served until he died of tuberculosis in 1865.
Peter Carlson (1822-1909) was born in Hjortsberga, Småland,
to poor parents, the oldest of five children.1 9 He doesn't tell us how
he learned to read, but does tell of several spiritual awakenings that
58
he experienced. When he was fifteen his father became blind, and
he, the oldest child, had to help support the family as a carpenter.
That year he also learned to play the violin and earned some money
with that skill. A t the age of sixteen he was confirmed. The instruc­tion
was inadequate, though what he learned troubled his conscience
to the point that he felt he was not worthy to partake of the Lord's
Supper. The next year he was caught up in the revival that swept
through Smaland, and for four years he regularly read the Bible. A t
the age of twenty-one, however, he lost his faith and began to live a
worldly life. Though kept from grave sins, he was all the more given
to all sorts of games, telling jokes, dancing, and singing light-hearted
songs, even frequenting taverns, though he says he never drank any
liquor. A t the same time, he took seriously the opinions of strict
pietists in the parish that such behavior was sinful, and in the midst
of a dance would tell himself that he was on the way to hell and were
he to die he would be lost. He married Stina Kajsa Andersdotter at
the age of twenty-six, and for a year he and his wife lived a merry life,
until God used a pious farmer to lead them out of darkness into
God's wondrous light. Peter now began again to read the Bible and
would spend long periods praying. He also read the sermons of Jakob
Otto Hoof, the sermons of the more evangelical Fredrik Gabriel
Hedberg, and Luther's Lectures on G a l a t i a n s , and subscribed to P i e t i s t e n.
His spiritual experiences during this period varied; he could at times
be depressed about his spiritual condition but then later experience
overwhelming joy.
In 1854, when he was thirty-two, he and his wife decided after
much prayer to join a group of thirty emigrants. When the group
arrived in St. Charles, Illinois, about half of them died of cholera,
and Peter's first work in America was to visit the sick and bury the
dead. He met Pastor Erland Carlsson, of Chicago, who was also
serving the St. Charles congregation, and began being a lay reader at
services and also to preach. He wanted to study at the seminary in
Springfield, Illinois, but was not accepted because he was too old and
he had a family. Pastor Erland Carlsson proposed that he be a colpor­teur
in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota for the American
Tract Society, selling books in four languages: English, German, Swedish,
and Danish. Peter moved his family to La Crosse, Wisconsin, and
59
began his travels, visiting fifteen to twenty families a day, finding out
what books they had, reading the Bible for them, and praying. He
would invite them to attend devotional services he held in the eve­nings.
He also preached at Sunday services. Difficulties of various
kinds and spiritual struggles continued, but he considered them as
God's way of disciplining him. One winter he attended public school
in La Crosse. He also spent some months studying with Erland Carlsson
in Chicago. He was finally licensed in 1858 and began pastoral
ministry in East Union, receiving ordination in 1859. He served both
East and West Union in 1858-71 and East Union alone in 1872-79.
He then became a missionary in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho
during 1879-97, after which he returned to Omaha, Nebraska, to be
a chaplain at Immanuel Deaconess Institute.
Norelius says of Carlson that, though he lacked all formal educa­tion,
he was well endowed in his understanding, also that his earlier
pietism developed into true Lutheran churchliness, without loss of
true pietism. In contrast to Johan Boreen, it was very important to
Carlson that meetings should begin and end on time, and sermons
should not be too long.2 0 For his labors both in Minnesota and in the
Northwest, he is remembered as a tireless frontier pastor among the
founders of the Augustana Synod.
Pehr Andersson Cederstam (1830-1902) was born in Glimakra,
Skane, 14 February 1830.21 His father had died in November of the
preceding year and his mother remarried a year later, though this
marriage proved extremely unhappy. After nine years she left her
husband and thereafter lived as a single parent, providing for her own
and Pehr's support. When Pehr was ten she arranged for him to be
taught one winter by the parish organist and schoolmaster, after
which he was expected to continue his education by himself. His
mother wanted him to become a tailor, though he had no interest in
that occupation. She then found a farmer who needed a swineherd.
Here Pehr spent a year and a half herding swine. He was required to
sleep in a stable and was permitted to come into the farmer's house
only for meals. Pehr's early education ended with three months spent
with a bookkeeper learning how to write and calculate.
When Pehr was fifteen he was able to return to his home parish
to live with his stepfather. (There is no further mention of his mother
60
in the autobiography.) That year he also received confirmation in­struction
from T. N . Hasselquist, who was then assistant pastor in the
Glimakra parish. Pehr regarded this period of instruction as a turning
point in his life. He became spiritually awakened and was sorry when
the confirmation period came to an end, for he feared that influences
from his home and comrades might lead him back into a sinful way
of life. For a time this began to happen, but then Pehr heard a
sermon by another pastor on the last judgment, which so frightened
him that he was again awakened. His new resolve, however, led to
difficulty in his home, where it was said with disapproval, "Pehr has
become a läsare." Pehr, who felt himself called to a strict Christian
lifestyle, was required by his family to leave home so abruptly that he
was unable even to take his clothing with him.
Pehr had now decided to devote his life to serving the Lord and
realized that he needed further education. In 1847, at the age of
seventeen, he began to study in Kristianstad, though he doesn't tell
us how he got the financial support he needed.2 2 After three years, a
nine months' illness interrupted his studies, but following his recovery
he continued studying with three instructors until the spring of 1853,
when he decided to emigrate to America. A t that time he could
have taken the s t u d e n t e x a m e n , which would have qualified him to
enroll at the theological faculty at Lund, but he says that his hatred
of ungodly pastors in the Church of Sweden led him in a separatist
direction. He decided therefore to discontinue his studies and emi­grate.
Upon Cederstam's arrival in New York on 17 July 1853, he met
Eric Norelius, who happened to be in the city just then. Norelius
suggested that Cederstam accompany him to Columbus, Ohio, for
further study at Capital University, but he was not ready for this. For
some months he had contact with Methodists, who claimed to be the
equivalent of Lutheran läsare. He spent some time with the Method­ists,
trying to determine whether this was true or if there were signifi­cant
differences between them and the Lutherans. In Chicago he
sought the advice of Pastor Erland Carlsson, who, knowing that
Cederstam had been confirmed by T. N . Hasselquist, advised him to
go to Galesburg. After coming to Galesburg, Cederstam was also
approached by Baptists, but Hasselquist persuaded him that he should
61
remain a Lutheran. For some months he assisted Hasselquist in the
congregations of his widespread parish. L. P. Esbjorn and Hasselquist,
who examined him, concluded that he did not need further theologi­cal
education. Cederstam was then licensed by the Synod of North­ern
Illinois and sent in 1855 to Chisago Lake, Minnesota, to serve
that congregation, which was waiting for an ordained pastor from
Sweden. Cederstam was ordained on 12 October 1856 in Dixon,
Illinois, and three days later married Johanna Laurentia Le Veau.
Cederstam remained in Chisago Lake and for a time was the only
ordained Lutheran pastor in Minnesota. He succeeded in holding the
Chisago Lake congregation together as they sought to determine
where to build their church, and led them i n its construction.23
While at Chisago Lake he also served on the committee that drew
up the constitution changing what had been Minnesota Territory to
the State of Minnesota.
In 1858 he moved from Chisago Lake to St. Peter and Scandian
Grove. He served there until the Sioux Uprising in 1862, which
caused him to flee with his pregnant wife, as did many others in
Scandian Grove. For a time he was a traveling missionary in Illinois,
but in 1866 his health was broken by the extensive travel this work
required. His wife, Johanna, also later suffered from what became a
chronic illness. Despite what were for him recurring health problems,
from 1867 to 1894 Cedarstam served a number of congregations in
Minnesota, Kansas, and Illinois.
The Chisago Lake congregation, which regarded Cederstam as
an interim pastor between 1856 and 1858, was unsuccessful in its
efforts to secure an ordained pastor from Sweden. Instead, in 1860
Carl Hedengran (1821-1880), of Goddelof in Skane, became their
pastor.24 Carl's father, an organist and teacher, had tried to educate
him and lead him to faith, but Carl was rebellious. When he was
fourteen he found companions who led him into a sinful life, the
details of which he does not explain. Eight years later an older person
from whom Carl borrowed novels offered him books that questioned
the truth of the Bible. He was afraid to look at them at first, but later
read a book about the evil that priests had done in the world.
According to the author, Roman Catholic priests were the worst, but
Carl noted that Lutheran priests in Sweden swore, played cards,
62
visited the theater, and were gluttons, which seemed to him to con-firm
the thesis of the book. He continued to read more such litera­ture.
In 1850, having heard about the discovery of gold in California,
Carl and his wife (whose name is not given) decided to emigrate.
Arriving in America, they decided first to visit Swedish settlements
and got as far as Peoria, Illinois, where Carl worked for a time as a
wagon maker. Later they moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, and then to
the East Union settlement. Here they remained without going on to
look for gold in California. It was at East Union that Carl experi­enced
a drawn-out spiritual struggle. He was in i l l health and afraid
of dying. He began to pray and to read Johan Arndt's S a n n a k r i s t e n d om
(True Christianity). His health improved somewhat, and he sub­scribed
to D e t G a m l a och N y a H e m l a n d e t and read also D e t Rätta
H e m l a n d e t . 2 5 He worried about the fact that his three-year-old daughter
was not baptized and finally proceeded to baptize her himself. His
agonizing struggles continued for quite a long time. He would beg
people to pray for him, but they thought he was simply emotionally
unbalanced and tried to encourage him in other ways. He told his
wife to hide his gun, lest he kill himself.
Norelius visited the East Union settlement in May 1857 and met
Hedengran, who by this time had finally survived his spiritual struggles
and gained peace, though he was fearful that this peace would be
lost. His confidence grew as he read the Bible and Luther's writings.
At Christmas of that year Peter Carlson came to the Union settle­ment.
His preaching led to an awakening that also strengthened
Hedengran. When, in the summer of 1858, Carlson became the
Union settlement's pastor, Hedengran moved farther west in the
settlement and built a chapel where he preached. Later the West
Union congregation was organized and used this building. A t mid­summer
1859 Peter Carlson made a brief visit to Chisago Lake, and
Hedengran accompanied him. When Carlson returned home,
Hedengran remained there, preaching as a layman. In August the
Chisago Lake congregation called Hedengran to be their pastor. He
was licensed that fall by the Synod of Northern Illinois and spent
some time the next spring with Pastor O. C. T. Andrén in Moline to
receive instruction about the duties of the pastoral office. O n 10
63
June 1860 he was ordained at the first meeting of the Augustana
Synod in Clinton, Wisconsin. Hedengran remained in Chisago Lake
for fifteen years, until 1875. He then found it necessary to resign
because of i l l health, so these years at Chisago Lake became the
extent of his ordained ministry.
Andrew Jackson (1828-1901) was born on Tjörn, an island of
the archipelago of Bohuslän, about thirty miles north of Göteborg.26
His parents, Olof Jakobson and Petronella Olsdotter, had eleven
children and were farmers. Others on the island were fishermen.
When Andrew was eleven, a pastor on the island recognized his
aptitude for study. For a year he studied privately with another pas­tor,
who was related to his father. Andrew then left home and
attended school for a year at Marstrand, located on another island,
after which he continued his schooling in Göteborg. He spent four
years in elementary school and then completed about two years of
the g y m n a s i u m curriculum. During the latter part of this period he
was also employed as a private tutor at three estates, the last of
which was the home of a sea captain. In 1852 both of Andrew's
parents died within the space of seven weeks. Though he was almost
ready to take the s t u d e n t e x a m e n and begin university studies at
Uppsala, he decided instead to go to sea with the captain as a ship's
steward.
In New York, however, due in part to disagreement with the
captain, he jumped ship. In part, this was also because he and three
other sailors on the ship were told there was the possibility of more
favorable employment on another ship. To escape detection, the
sailors all changed their names, Andrew changing his from Dahlin, a
name he had taken while studying in Göteborg, to Jackson, an angli­cized
version of Jakobson, his father's name. When he applied for
work on another ship, the captain recognized that he actually had
limited experience as a seaman. After living three weeks in a seamen's
home, having found no work and with no money to pay his bill,
Jackson sold a silk vest and a silk scarf for seventy-five cents, left his
trunk and its contents as some compensation for what he owed for
board and room, and absconded. He found railroad tracks going out
of New York and, having heard of Galesburg, Illinois, decided he
would to walk to Galesburg. A t a station along the way, however, he
64
learned how far that would be and realized that walking there was
impossible. He turned off on a road that crossed the railroad track
and walked for some days, eating apples fallen from trees along the
road and sleeping at night in hay lofts. In his discouragement, one
day he knelt by a large stone and prayed to God—the first time, he
says, he had prayed in this manner. As he continued walking he
came to a brickyard, where he did find work. He was given food and
a place to sleep. The shanty in which he was to sleep was, however,
infested with bedbugs, and he decided to move on. Walking farther,
he found employment at a sawmill, and there he spent five years
working with an Irish and Yankee crew. During this period he learned
to speak and read English. He was promoted until he was finally the
foreman. His strength and ability to defend himself led his fellow
workers to call him Goliath.
During those years he began to attend services, where for the
most part he heard Methodist preachers. After the five years, he
decided to ask for his pay in order to return to Sweden. He was given
a check for $150, but when he tried to cash it in New York, he was
told that the sawmill was bankrupt.2 7 Since he was again without
money, he could not pay for passage to Sweden. He worked for some
weeks as a waiter in a New York saloon. Then, having met Swedish
immigrants from Hälsingland whose destination was Waupaca, Wis­consin,
he decided to join them, traveling with them as their English
speaking guide.2 8 In Waupaca he worked again at a sawmill and for a
few months taught English school. During this period he may have
been influenced by a Norwegian Lutheran minister, who came every
seventh or eighth week to Waupaca. During the other weeks lay-led
devotional services were held, in which Jackson participated as a
reader.2 9 In the summer of 1859, he accompanied some Swedish
families who had sold their farms and were moving to Minnesota.
They stopped first at East Union and then continued their journey to
Kandiyohi County.
Jackson, who had begun to be a lay reader at services in Waupaca,
did this also in congregations the Swedish colonists organized in
Kandiyohi County. For a time he accepted a proposal in the congre­gations
that the services one Sunday be led by the Methodists, the
next Sunday by the Baptists, and the third Sunday by the Lutherans.
65
When, however, Peter Carlson came from East Union to visit the
settlement, he explained to Jackson that it was impossible to join
together Methodists, Baptists, and Lutherans in this way. Carlson
then organized three Lutheran congregations among the Swedish
settlers, and Jackson was elected deacon in all three. He had been
employed in a sawmill but now devoted most of his time to working
with these congregations.
For about three months during the winter and spring of 1860,
Jackson endured a time of intense spiritual struggle about his own
state of grace. A n experienced Christian was sent from East Union to
speak with him, and then brought him to East Union. The Minne­sota
Conference happened to be holding its summer meeting when
they arrived. Getting to know the pastors and listening to their
sermons proved helpful to Jackson. The pastors advised h im to study
with Professor Esbjörn at the seminary just being organized in Chi­cago.
To raise money to pay for Jackson's ticket to Chicago, the
women in the Kandiyohi congregations collected a load of butter,
which was brought to Carver, near East Union, and sold. A t the
seminary, Jackson related very well to Esbjörn and became a leader
among the students. After a year's study, he was ordained on 9 June
1861 at the synod meeting in Galesburg, with a call to the Kandiyohi
congregations. His ministry among them was brief, however, for dur­ing
the Sioux Uprising thirteen adults and six children who were
members of these congregations were killed and the others scattered.
The trauma of the Sioux Uprising did not lead Jackson, like
Cederstam, to leave Minnesota. For about a year he traveled about,
preaching at Minnesota congregations that were without a pastor. In
the summer of 1863 he was called to be the principal of the school
that, after it was moved from Red Wing to East Union, became
known in 1865 as St. Ansgar's Academy. Here he served from 1863
to 1876, when the school was moved to St. Peter and renamed
Gustavus Adolphus College. As principal during those years, Jack­son
did most of the teaching. Courses taught were Christianity, Swed­ish,
English, American history, geography, arithmetic, writing, and
singing.3 0 Norelius wrote the following evaluation of Jackson's com­petence
as a teacher: "He is very active and diligent in his call, and
particularly attentive to his duties. However he is too dry as a school-
66
teacher, but that's his nature."3 1 Another evaluation was given by
Carl A . Swensson, the founder and president of Bethany College:
"Pastor Jackson, the first rector, was father and patriarch among his
students, an able teacher, a pious Christian, a real humanitarian, for
whom it was comparatively easy to maintain order and discipline."32
Jackson was a modest man and fully conscious of the limitations of
his academic preparation. His successor, when the school moved to
St. Peter, was Jonas P. Nyquist, who had training and experience as a
teacher in Sweden. Jackson, while principal at St. Ansgar's Academy,
was also pastor of the West Union congregation. Here he chose to
remain from 1876 to 1889. During the years 1890-92 he traveled
raising money for Gustavus Adolphus College. His final call was to
the Rush Lake parish in 1893, where he served until his death in
1901. Norelius tells us that Jackson was married twice, first to Kristina
Swenson, of Beckville, Minnesota, with whom he had three children,
and then, after Kristina's death, to Lovisa Peterson, of Cannon River,
Minnesota. No dates are given, however, for these marriages or for
Kristina's death.33
Readers may be wondering how it was possible for these pastors
to provide the leadership that the congregations in Minnesota needed
during those early years. A part of the answer is that among them
was Eric Norelius (1833-1916), the youngest of their number, born
26 October 1833 in Hassela, Hälsingland.34 His early education be­gan
in his home at the age of six, when his father taught him to read.
By the time he was eight, under the guidance of a neighbor he had
memorized the catechism, including the explanatory Bible verses.
During the winters of 1842-43 and 1843-44, Eric was influenced by
the awakening in the parish led by lay preachers. He became con­cerned
about his salvation and shared in the spirit of the revival. For
six summers, from the time he was nine till he was fifteen, he herded
goats and sheep in the mountains, and for five of those winters he
watched charcoal kilns. During his confirmation instruction in the
fall of 1847, he was concerned about how to find peace with God,
how to get forgiveness of sin. His pastor, whose instruction did not go
far beyond requiring memorization, advised him, "Go to the Savior
in prayer; watch and pray, watch and pray." U p to this time, Eric says
that he had been seeking salvation by works rather than through
67
grace, but in the summer of 1848 he found some helpful books. He
read A R e f u t a t i o n of the D o c t r i n e of W o r k s and a Defense of the Gospel, by
Fredrik Gabriel Hedberg. After also reading Luther's Lectures on
G a l a t i a n s and The Book of C o n c o r d , he began to feel that he under­stood
the great principle of justification by faith.
During the winter of 1847, when Eric was fourteen, he attended
the parish school for some weeks, where he studied arithmetic, geog­raphy,
and Latin, mainly by himself. Later that winter, Eric continued
to study his Latin grammar while watching charcoal kilns. His teacher
had noted Eric's aptitude for study and informed his father that he
should be given the opportunity for further education. In 1848 Eric's
father arranged for him to enter the g y m n a s i u m in Hudiksvall. Eric
made rapid progress because he already knew a great deal of Latin.
After two years he was about ready for the s t u d e n t e x a m e n , but he did
not feel that his family's financial resources would enable him to
continue his study at the university. A rather large group from his
parish, led by a wealthy farmer, had decided to emigrate, and Eric
and his older brother decided to join to them. After a four-month
voyage they arrived in New York on 31 October 1850, four days
after Eric's seventeenth birthday. A n example of the confidence the
immigrant group had in Eric was their choice of him to determine
how much each one of the company was to receive when their
Swedish money was exchanged for American money. Having done
this, Eric went to a Wall Street bank, exchanged the money, and
carried several thousand dollars in gold in a little leather pouch back
to the ship.35
The group then left New York and spent three weeks traveling to
Andover, Illinois, where Eric met Pastor Lars Paul Esbjörn. En route
he asked clergymen he met for advice about how he might prepare
himself for pastoral ministry. In New York, Olof Hedstrom, on the
Bethel Ship, had told him that he could become a Methodist minis­ter
at once, for all that was required was to be converted and fear
God. In Chicago, Gustaf Unonius proposed that he study at Nashotah
House in Wisconsin and become an Episcopal priest. In Andover,
Esbjörn advised him to study at Capital University in Columbus,
Ohio. Norelius was determined to remain a Lutheran, but it took
some time for him to make up his mind to go to Columbus. He
68
visited Galesburg and Moline, and for a few months during the
winter he worked on a farm near Moline and also attended a rural
school. He met Esbjörn a number of times when Esbjörn visited the
congregation he had organized in Moline. In the spring of 1851
Norelius decided that he would go to Columbus. He traveled there
with Esbjörn, who was on a trip east to try to raise money among
German- and English-speaking Lutherans for building churches for
Swedish immigrants in Illinois. Arriving at Capital University, Norelius
studied there for a total of three years, the first two in the college.
In the summer of 1853 Norelius went to New York, hoping to
meet his parents, who had also decided to emigrate. When their
arrival was delayed, he went to Chicago, where he taught school for
several months of the fall and winter. He spent the summer of 1854
in Minnesota with the Chisago Lake congregation and then returned
to Columbus for a year of seminary studies. In 1855 the Synod of
Northern Illinois persuaded him to terminate these studies and be
licensed. He was sent to congregations in Indiana, where he served
one year. He had already been in Indiana, where, in West Point, he
met his future bride, Inga Lotta Peterson. In his autobiography Norelius
tells us of their engagement, but not of their marriage on 10 June
1855.3 6 He was ordained on 12 September 1856 by the Synod of
Northern Illinois, and, responding to a call from Minnesota, Eric and
Inga Lotta came to serve two congregations in Red Wing and Vasa.
A n important factor in Norelius's development as a church leader
was his relationship with Lars Paul Esbjörn. Esbjörn arranged for
Norelius's study at Capital University and accompanied him on the
journey from Moline to Columbus. From that time on, they corre­sponded
with each other. In a theological journal he edited Norelius
published letters he had received from Esbjörn from 21 August 1851
to 18 February 1869, the last letter written from Sweden about
sixteen months before Esbjorn's death on 2 July 1870.3 7 Though
Esbjörn was twenty-five years older than Norelius, they addressed
each other as colleagues. In some respects Esbjörn was Norelius's
mentor, but on certain issues, such as the doctrine of justification,
relations with other denominations, and what confessional loyalty
required, Norelius felt that he could advise Esbjörn. Comparing
Esbjorn's preaching in 1850 with a sermon he heard in 1854, Norelius
69
noted improvement in Esbjorn's presentation of the Lutheran doc­trine
of justification.3 8 In 1856 Norelius found that there had been a
change in Esbjorn's thinking, from an earlier pietism that stressed the
experience of new birth to greater confidence in the power of the
sacraments of baptism and holy communion. Commenting on Esbjörn's
statement in a letter dated 30 January 1856 that he was willing to
admit baptized persons to holy communion, even if they had not
told him that they had been born again, Norelius writes, "What a
remarkable change since 1850 and 1851!"3 9 Apropos of relations
with other denominations, Norelius did not approve of the fact that
Esbjörn had been supported at first by the American Home Mission
Society. He also disagreed when, in defense of the presence of the
Swedish pastors and congregations in the Synod of Northern Illinois,
despite that synod's doctrinal laxity, Esbjörn wrote, "Truth is invin­cible,
not when it stands and speaks at a distance, but when it comes
into contact with error."4 0 While Norelius respected Esbjörn greatly,
he was somewhat more conservative and, at the same time, had
considerable self-confidence, which he needed in the leadership roles
he later had to fill.
During Norelius's long ministry, though he served for short peri­ods
elsewhere, he lived most of the time in Vasa. In 1860-61 he
traveled with a blind horse through central Minnesota as a home
missionary, organizing congregations. Returning to Red Wing and
Vasa in 1862, he founded in Red Wing what became Gustavus
Adolphus College and Vasa Children's Home in 1865. In the early
years, when the Minnesota Conference met three times a year and a
new chairman was elected for each meeting, Norelius held this office
several times. In 1870 it was decided to elect a president for a one-year
term. Norelius was the first to serve under this rule and was
reelected until 1874, when he became president of the Augustana
Synod. He served in this office in 1874-81 and again in 1899-1911.
He edited and wrote for several periodicals. There were also years
when he suffered from i l l health. Once, to recover, he was sent on a
missionary trip to the West Coast. He recovered also by staying
home in Vasa, where he wrote, among other things, what became his
1,400-page, two-volume history.4 1 Throughout his long career he
had the confidence of the leaders in Illinois, but also represented
70
effectively the interests of the Minnesota Conference.
CONCLUSION
As is evident from their biographies, the way in which the first
Minnesota pastors became prepared for ordination differed greatly
from how the five first pastors in Illinois met the qualifications for
ordination in the Swedish dioceses of Uppsala, Lund, and Växjö.
While all of the early Augustana pastors had been influenced by the
nineteenth-century Swedish lay revival, the first Minnesota pastors
came directly out of it. With the possible exception of Jackson, it was
their struggle to be assured of their own salvation that led them to
think of devoting their lives to pastoral ministry. A l l of them passed
through times of spiritual struggle and gained theological insight from
such struggles. In their preaching, their chief concern was to make,
individuals conscious of their need for salvation. Their hearers knew
that they needed assurance of salvation, for life was uncertain and
could end suddenly. Emigrants had died on the voyage across the
Atlantic, and upon their arrival in America, deadly cholera awaited
many of them. The Minnesota pastors preached the law to make
people aware of their sins, and to those who came to such an aware­ness
they proclaimed the good news of God's forgiveness freely granted
through Jesus Christ. In their own experience they knew, however,
that it wasn't easy to come to clarity in one's understanding of the
gospel. Rather than theological textbooks, they read the Bible, and
they also read sermons and devotional writings by pietist authors
such as Johan Arndt, Fredrick Gabriel Hedberg, Jacob Otto Hoof,
and Carl Olof Rosenius. They also read Luther and The Book of
C o n c o r d . In the case of Norelius, this reading of Luther and the
Lutheran confessions gave him such confidence that he regularly
included in his diary critique of sermons he heard.42
The difference between the Minnesota and the Illinois pastors
must not be overemphasized, but the former were more closely iden­tified
with the people they served in terms of their backgrounds and
their level of educational attainment than were the university-trained
pastors in Illinois. To a greater extent than in Illinois, one found in
Minnesota a piety nurtured by the reading of P i e t i s t e n , edited by
71
Rosenius. This contributed to M i n n e s o t a anden, the Minnesota spirit.
Another important factor in the ministry of the Minnesota pas­tors
was its predominantly rural setting. There were, of course, rural
congregations in Illinois, such as Andover, Knoxville, Pecatonica,
and Wataga; but there were also, prior to 1860, congregations in
Chicago, where the population in 1860 was 112,172, and in other
urban centers with significant populations: De Kalb (1,708), Galesburg
(4,953), Geneseo (1,792), Moline (2,027), Rock Island (5,130),
Princeton (2,473), and Rockford (6,979).43 Of the thirteen congre­gations
that organized the Minnesota Conference in 1858, on the
other hand, only three were in communities that in 1860 were in any
sense urban: Red Wing (1,156), St. Paul (10,401), and St. Peter
(972).4 4 What is even more remarkable is that the other ten congre­gations—
Cannon River, Chisago Lake, East and West Union, Marine
(now Elim, Scandia), Scandian Grove, Spring Garden, Stockholm
(Wisconsin), Vasa, and Vista—are still rural. A l l of them are located
in the open country, with the exception of Chisago Lake, where the
1993 population was 451.4 5 Of Minnesota's three urban congrega­tions
in 1858, the congregation in St. Paul, for various reasons, grew
very slowly. In 1870, when the population of St. Paul was nearly
30,000, First, St. Paul had only forty-three communicant members.46
This rural setting must have influenced the mindset of the Min­nesota
pastors, making them more conservative, their people less
affected by the temptations of city life. When they met at synod
meetings with Illinois pastors, they were aware that they could be
regarded as country cousins. There were hardships connected with
rural life at that time. Homes in Minnesota were more often rude log
cabins. Roads and railroads were not yet well developed. There was
more poverty in the early years in Minnesota than in Illinois. The
Minnesota pastors suffered also from physical illnesses, which may
have been related to the fact that they had to endure frontier condi­tions
more severe than those that the pastors in Illinois encountered.
At the same time, the Minnesota pastors were convinced that the
Lutheran Church had an important future in Minnesota. By 1858
they had only begun to organize congregations in a small part of the
state. They expected many more Swedes to come to settle on lands
that in so many ways resembled their Swedish homeland. Nor did
72
these pastors limit their vision of the future to Minnesota. Beckman
and Carlson, in their later ministry, moved much farther west.
The Minnesota spirit, therefore, made the Minnesota pastors refuse
to be fenced in by Augustana Synod leaders like Hasselquist, who
thought that the synod's institutions should be centralized in Illinois.
For a time there was thought of establishing a Minnesota Synod that
would have been comparable to the Synod of Northern Illinois.
Instead, the Minnesota Conference was organized, with the under­standing
that it would be one of the conferences of a Scandinavian
synod, which was not organized until 1860. Minnesota wanted its
own school which, as long as it was still an academy, sent its gradu­ates
to Augustana College and Seminary, but after 1890 Gustavus
Adolphus College was a feeder only to the seminary. Norelius made
various efforts, with mixed success, to establish a church paper in
Minnesota. Over the years such papers as Minnesota P o s t e n , L u t h e r sk
K y r k o t i d n i n g , Skaffaren, and M i n n e s o t a S t a t s Tidning followed each other.
Only the last of the four was successful and survived until 1940.47
Insofar as Norelius was involved in these ventures, efforts were made
to bring him to Illinois as editor of H e m l a n d e t in 1859 and as editor
of A u g u s t a n a in 1889-90, but he kept returning to Minnesota.48
That Norelius was one of the early Minnesota pastors contrib­uted
both to the strength of the Minnesota spirit and to what eventu­ally
became its harmonious relation to the Augustana Synod. He was
one of the twelve pastors who met on 5 June 1860 at the Norwegian
Jefferson Prairie Church near Clinton, Wisconsin, to organize the
Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Augustana Synod in North
America, and it was he who proposed that it be known as the
Augustana Synod.4 9 Insofar as the residence of the president became
the center of the synod, for nineteen years that center was in Vasa, as
Norelius served in this office longer than any other Augustana Synod
president. It was as synod president that he spoke at the synod
convention of 1876 against a proposed constitution that would have
divided the synod into district synods, each synod having the power
to ordain. Though the constitution had been adopted at its first
reading in 1875, it was decisively defeated in 1876.50
In 1935 P. O. Bersell, upon being elected president of the
Augustana Synod, not only moved his residence from Ottumwa,
73
Iowa, to Minneapolis, but also established the synodical headquarters
in a suite of offices at 2445 Park Avenue in Minneapolis. By this
time, despite the Rosenian heritage that still flourished in Minnesota,
several generations of Augustana pastors, in whichever conference
they served, had almost all studied at Augustana Seminary in Rock
Island and now shared what was in most respects the same piety. As
far as issues of polity and organization were concerned, the synod was
now centered in Minnesota. The spirit of independence in Minnesota
could therefore be left to become a part of the synod's history.
ENDNOTES
1. Lily Setterdahl, "Peter Cassel's New Sweden," in Peter Cassel & Iowa's
N e w Sweden, ed. H . Arnold Barton (Chicago: Swedish-American Historical
Society, 1995), 11-30; G. Everett Arden, Augustana Heritage (Rock Island:
Augustana Book Concern, 1963), 23-26.
2. Conrad Bergendoff, The Augustana Ministerium (Rock Island: Augustana
Historical Society, 1980), 14.
3. Emeroy Johnson, A Church Is Planted (Minneapolis: Lutheran Minnesota
Conference, 1948), 32-34.
4. Ibid., 1-10; Bergendoff, 15.
5. Emeroy Johnson does refer to "the spirit of independence in Minnesota"
in Eric N o r e l i u s , Pioneer Midwest Pastor and C h u r c h m a n (Rock Island: Augustana
Book Concern, 1954), 166.
6. Eric Norelius, T. N . Hasselquist, Lefvnadsteckning (Rock Island: Lutheran
Augustana Book Concern, n.d.), 63-64.
7. This suggestion was made by Dr. Theodore Conrad in a private conver­sation
at his apartment in Minneapolis, 13 May 1998. Rev. William J. Hyllengren,
who grew up in Vasa, Minnesota, agrees at this point with Dr. Conrad (private
conversation at Normandale Lutheran Church, Edina, Minn., 25 April 1999).
8. Eric Norelius, De svenska luterska församlingarnas och svenskames historia i
A m e r i k a , vol. 1 (Rock Island, Lutheran Augustana Book Concern, 1890), here­after
Historia.
9. Annual volumes of Korsbaneret were published by the Augustana Book
Concern, which contained biographies of deceased Augustana Synod pastors.
Brief biographies of Beckman, Boreen, Carlson, Cederstam, Hedengran, and
Norelius are also to be found in Oscar N . Olson, The Augustana Lutheran C h u r ch
in A m e r i c a , Pioneer Period 1846 to 1 8 6 0 (Rock Island: Augustana Book Concern,
1950), 371-80.
10. Yngve Brilioth, S v e n s k k y r k o k u n s k a p , 2d ed. (Stockholm: Svenska kyrkans
74
diakonistyrelses bokförlag, 1946), 275-78.
11. Beckman's biography is found in Norelius, Historia, 682-95, and Norelius,
"Peter Beckman," K o r s b a n e r e t 37 (1916): 135-43.
12. Hemlandssånger (Rock Island: Augustana Book Concern, 1892), no. 99.
13. The name of Beckman's wife was gotten from his great-great-grandson,
Dr. Peter Theodore Beckman. In Beckman's autobiography, which Norelius uses
in both his Historia and the obituary in K o r s b a n e r e t , Beckman tells of his mar­riage
but does not give the name of his wife. The Beckmans had seven children,
five of whom died at an early age. The other two are named. Anders Peter died
while a theological student at Augustana College, while Ferdinand lived to
adulthood and was postmaster in Troy, Idaho. Historia, 684; K o r s b a n e r e t 37,142.
Bergendoff's Ministerium, 15, also fails to give the name of Beckman's wife, as
does the death notice in Augustana 60 (11 February 1915): 1111, where Mrs.
Beckman is said to be in good health and soon to be eighty-eight years of age.
14. The Augustana Synod did not adopt the 1819 Wallin Psalmbok, but
instead used the 1849 Thomander-Wieselgren revision of that Psalmbok. Allan
Arvastson, D e n Thomander-Wieselgrenska psalmboken (Stockholm: SKDB, 1949),
177-221,305-9.
15. Historia, 687, 689.
16. Norelius gives biographical information on Johan Boreen in H i s t o r i a ,
655, 661-62, 669-74. Norelius's funeral sermon for Boreen, the first Augustana
pastor to die, is found in Det Rätta H e m l a n d e t 10 (1965): 70-74.
17. Historia, 661-62.
18. For biographical information about Peter Carlson, see Historia, 712-34;
P.M.L. (Peter M. Lindberg), "Pastor Peter Carlson," Korsbaneret 31 (1910): 178-
94.
19. Tidskrift för Svensk Ev. L u t h . Kyrkohistoria i N . A m e r i k a och för teologiska
och kyrkliga frågor, E. Norelius, ed. (Rock Island: Lutheran Augustana Book Con­cern,
1899), 133.
20. Tributes at the time of Carlson's death by Norelius and G . K. Wm. Dahl,
Augustana 54 (26 August 1909): 670-71.
21. For biographical information about Cederstam, see Historia, 568-73,
575-81; Norelius, "Teol. dr. Pehr Anderson Cederstam," K o r s b a n e r e t 24 (1903),
129-44; Augustana 47 (31 July 1902): 488.
22. A number of questions can be asked about Cederstam's autobiography.
With respect to his experience as a swineherd, Norelius states that a young boy
could be treated this way in Sweden in the 1840s (Korsbaneret, 131). Pehr tells
of an older brother, Anders, who also emigrated and died in Wataga, Illinois, 26
January 1874 (Historia, 575). One wonders whether Anders had similar experi­ences.
After the first references to Pehr's mother, she is mentioned no more. Was
she living with Pehr's stepfather when he was permitted to come home at the age
75
of fifteen? Could she have agreed to his being driven out because of his pious
zeal two years later, without even being able to take his clothes along? Norelius
says that Pehr had a small inheritance (Korsbaneret, 131), but was this enough to
support him during six years of study?
23. Johnson, A Church Is Planted, 35-37.
24. For Hedengran's autobiography, see Historia, 587-97.
25. Historia, 591.
26. Norelius mentions Andrew Jackson only once in his Historia, but he has
written an extended account of Jackson's life in "Dr Andrew Jackson," Korsbaneret
23 (1902): 160-98. See also Doniver Lund, Gustavus Adolphus College, A C e n ­tennial
History 1 8 6 2 - 1 9 6 2 (St. Peter: Gustavus Adolphus College Press, 1963),
21-24.
27. Before leaving New York he authorized an innkeeper whom he trusted
to collect what might be due him from the bankrupt sawmill. Several years later
he received a registered letter addressed to him at Scandia, Carver County,
Minn., containing fifty dollars. K o r s b a n e r e t 23 (1902): 168.
28. H i s t o r i a , 591.
29. Lund, 22; Korsbaneret, 171,
30. Lund, 23, 27.
31. Ibid., 24.
32. C. A . Swensson, Vid hemmets härd (Stockholm: Bohlin & Co., 1897),
549.
33. Swenson, 198. The names of the three children were Hanna, Esther, and
Josef Ansgarius.
34. For the life of Eric Norelius, primary use has been made of his own Early
Life of Eric Norelius ( 1 8 3 3 - 1 8 6 2 ) , A Lutheran Pioneer, trans. Emeroy Johnson
(Rock Island: Augustana Book Concern, 1934); see also Johnson, Eric Norelius;
G. R. (Gustaf Rast), "Eric Norelius," Korsbaneret 38 (1917): 169-79.
35. Norelius, Early Life, 105.
36. Ibid., 245-49. For the marriage, see Johnson, Eric N o r e l i u s , 45.
37. Norelius, Tidskrift, 244-354.
38. Norelius, "Personliga hågkonster af L. P. Esbjörn," Tidskrift, 363,365.
39. Norelius, 284-85; Historia, 180-81.
40. Norelius, 272-74; Norelius, Early Life, 254.
41. The first volume has been cited above. Volume 2 was completed shortly
before his death and published by the Augustana Book Concern in 1916.
42. Norelius, Early Life, 179-80, 183.
43. Ninth Census, vol. 1, Statistics of the Population of the U.S. (Washing­ton:
Government Printing Office, 1872), 108-21.
44. Ninth Census, vol. 1, 176-82. The figure given for St. Peter is that of
Oshawa Township, in which St. Peter is located. Not until 1970 is St. Peter
76
listed, with a population of 2,117.
45. 1993-94 Official Minnesota Highway Map.
46. Johnson, A Church Is Planted, 52.
47. Johnson, Eric Norelius, 69-72,152-62, 193-98.
48. Johnson, Eric Norelius, 72, and Bergendoff, 15.
49. Sam Rönnegård, Prairie Shepherd, Lars Paul Esbjörn and the Beginnings of
the Augustana Lutheran Church, trans. G . Everett Arden (Rock Island: Augustana
Book Concern, 1952), 265-67.
50. Johnson, Eric N o r e l i u s , 166-67, 231.
77

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Eric Norelius and M i n n e s o t a A n d e n ,
or "the Minnesota Spirit"
B E R N H A R D E R L I NG
In 1848, the first congregation of what became the Augustana
Synod was organized at New Sweden in southeastern Iowa. The
New Sweden settlement had been formed in 1845 by twenty-one
immigrants from Kisa in the province of Östergötland, led by Peter
Cassel. When they formed their congregation, they had no pastor
but managed to persuade Magnus Håkansson, a shoemaker, to be
their lay preacher. He had wanted to prepare for the ministry in
Sweden but had received no encouragement from his shoemaker
father or from anyone else, and he finally decided to emigrate and
joined the Cassel group. Hakansson's lack of sufficient theological
training made him vulnerable as a pastoral leader. Gustaf Unonius,
who had come to Pine Lake, Wisconsin, in 1841, where he later
studied at the nearby Nashotah House and was ordained an Episco­pal
priest, visited New Sweden in 1849 and upbraided Håkansson for
conducting services and administering sacraments without having
been ordained. In 1850 Jonas Hedström, a Methodist, came to New
Sweden and held a series of meetings that resulted in the organization
of a Methodist congregation, with Peter Cassel, the leader of the
New Sweden settlement, becoming one of its members.
Håkansson was ordained by the Synod of Northern Illinois in
1853, but the religious fragmentation of the community continued in
1854, when the Baptist preachers Gustaf Palmqvist and F. O. Nilsson
arrived. Their critique of infant baptism had such a strong effect on
Håkansson that he resigned his ministry and went with others to be
baptized in the Skunk River, which flowed through the settlement.
BERNHARD E R L I N G is professor emeritus in religion at Gustavus Adolphus Col¬
lege. His interests include twentieth-century Swedish theologians, the writings of D a g
Hammarskjold, and Swedish A m e r i c a.
He almost immediately regretted what he had done. Encouraged by
other Lutheran pastors, who by this time had come to work among
the Swedish immigrants, as well as by the remaining members of the
congregation, he took up his work again.1 Soon, however, there were
three churches built along a one-mile stretch of country road, sym­bolic
of the religious divisions among the Swedish immigrants.
A more important center of Swedish Lutheran church life had
begun to develop in Illinois. Lars Paul Esbjörn came to Andover in
1849, and a congregation was organized there in 1850. In 1851 a
congregation was organized in Galesburg, and Tufve Nilsson Hasselquist
came to be its pastor in 1852. Erland Carlsson arrived in Chicago in
1853. O. C. T. Andrén came to Moline in 1856, and Jonas Swensson,
after serving two years in Jamestown, New York, succeeded Esbjörn
in Andover in 1858. In contrast to Magnus Håkansson, all five of
these pastors had received their theological education and ordina­tion
in Sweden and had served congregations before coming to the
United States.2
Swedish immigrants began to arrive in Minnesota in 1851. The
first congregations in St. Paul, Chisago Lake, and Scandia were orga­nized
in 1854 by Pastor Erland Carlsson, who was on a missionary
trip in Minnesota.3 Four years later the Minnesota Conference was
organized with thirteen congregations served by five pastors, of whom
only two were as yet ordained. The other three were licensed and
would be ordained in 1859. The five were Peter Beckman, Johan
Boreen, Peter Carlson, Pehr Cederstam, and Eric Norelius. A l l of
these pastors, like the five pastors in Illinois, were born in Sweden,
but none of them had completed his theological education or been
ordained in Sweden.4
What does all of this have to do with M i n n e s o t a a n d e n , or "the
Minnesota spirit"? What, for that matter, does the term mean? While
one will not find it discussed to any great extent in written sources, it
was part of Augustana's oral tradition.5 It referred to how Minnesota
differed from other parts of the synod, especially Illinois. Among
other things, it had to do with tendencies toward separatism, which
the leaders of the Augustana Synod thought they saw in the Minne­sota
Conference, especially as the conference began to grow in strength.
Eric Norelius, in his biography of Hasselquist, writes that Hasselquist
53
stressed centralization. He recommended that the Swedish Lutherans
have one synod, one college and seminary, one church paper, and
one central administration, and that there should be as much geo­graphic
concentration of the Swedish Lutheran congregations as pos­sible.
Norelius said such a plan would work only if there were good
understanding between the center of the synod and the periphery.
Furthermore, this idea of centralization could be too narrowly con­ceived.
Synod leaders in Illinois at that time were opposed to immi­grants
moving to Minnesota. They were against congregations orga­nizing
a conference in Minnesota. They didn't think there should be
another college in Minnesota. A n d they were against Norelius trying
to publish his own paper in Minnesota.6 That Norelius and others in
Minnesota did not agree with Augustana leaders in Illinois is cer­tainly
one explanation for what is called M i n n e s o t a a n d e n.
Another possible explanation is that M i n n e s o t a anden referred to
a somewhat different piety in Minnesota, a piety that was more lay
oriented, a piety strongly influenced by C. O. Rosenius.7 In such a
case, this could have had something to do with the pastoral leader­ship
in Minnesota during the first decades of the life of the congrega­tions
that became the Minnesota Conference. While the names Esbjörn
and Hasselquist, perhaps also Erland Carlsson and Jonas Swensson,
are well known to those interested in the origins of the Augustana
Synod, the names of the Minnesota pastors, except for Eric Norelius,
are not so familiar—Peter Beckman, Johan Boreen, Peter Carlson,
Pehr Cederstam. Since Johan Boreen died in 1865 after a ministry of
only seven years, the names of Carl Hedengran, ordained in 1860,
and Andrew Jackson, ordained in 1861, can be added to these.
How did these pastors differ from the first Illinois pastors? They
obviously were not as well educated. Several of them had undergone
periods of spiritual struggle in connection with their call to the min­istry.
They were not as vulnerable as was Magnus Håkansson to
efforts of Methodists and Baptists to gain members from their congre­gations,
but they also had to determine what it meant to be a Lutheran.
We can learn a good deal about these pastors from the autobio­graphical
and biographical information collected by Eric Norelius
and published in his history of the Swedish Lutheran congregations.8
54
Another source is the obituaries published in the annual volumes of
K o r s b a n e r e t . 9
When one inquires about the education of these pastors before
their emigration from Sweden, one must remember, since they were
born between the years 1822 and 1833, that general public educa­tion
providing for a six-year elementary school did not begin in
Sweden until 1842. Prior to that time there was a law stating that
parents and guardians should teach their children to read with the
aid of an A - B - C book, but only some parents were able to do this
very effectively. Some education was offered in the parishes in con­nection
with confirmation instruction, which centered largely on
Luther's Catechism.1 0 Those who could not read very well heard the
catechism read to them and memorized it. There were schools in
urban communities, but to attend them the rural children had to live
away from home. Those who advanced as far as the g y m n a s i u m,
roughly equivalent to our high school plus a year of junior college
today, would learn a good deal of Latin and some Greek. Passing a
final examination, known as the s t u d e n t e x a m e n , would qualify one for
entrance to the universities of Uppsala or Lund, where one could
study theology, law, or medicine or do advanced study in the arts
and sciences. What follows is an account of how the first Minnesota
pastors, given the educational opportunities available to them in
Sweden and later in the United States, became prepared for their
ministry.
T H E MINNESOTA PASTORS
Peter Beckman (1822-1915), from Enånger in Hälsingland, whose
mother was not able to teach him to read, received his earliest
education from another woman in the parish.1 1 A t the age of thirteen
he was apprenticed to a tailor. He received confirmation instruction
in his home congregation but doesn't tell us what he learned, except
to say that he had a bad conscience about his sinful behavior during
this period, while the good emotions stimulated by reading and hear­ing
God's word did not last. There were readers of pietist literature
(läsare) in the congregation. Their critique of the behavior of Peter
and his friends made him concerned about his sins, though he did
55
not know how he could become truly pious, nor did he want to
abandon his comrades. The pastors, who lived like others in the
congregation, were judged by the lay readers as being "without God
in the world." In 1840, when Peter was eighteen, the parish received
a pastor more spiritually minded than his predecessors, but years
passed while Peter's anxiety about his salvation gradually increased.
Just before Advent in 1845 he was awakened by a terrifying dream.
His first thought was, "What if I had awakened to find myself in
hell!" His frightened cries woke others in the house, to whom he
explained that God's wrath over his sins was tormenting him. He was
so restless that he was unable to work. During the months that
followed he prayed and read books that strongly condemned sin. He
thought he was having some success in overcoming his evil heart,
but evil desires returned. He had begun to read the periodical P i e t i s t e n ,
edited by Carl Olof Rosenius, and found in the Easter issue a hymn,
"Uppstånden är Kristus, gudomliga l i v " (Christ is risen, divine life),
by C. G . Cassel (1783-1866).12 As he read the hymn, his eyes were
opened and he realized that his sins had been cast upon Jesus. Before
he went to rest that evening, he was able to thank God for the
forgiveness of sins. His spiritual life was thereafter transformed, and
he was able to find satisfaction in his work.
By this time each parish had its own school, and Beckman began
to teach, for a year as a substitute and then with a regular appoint­ment,
though he doesn't tell us how he had become qualified to
teach. After teaching for five years, he withdrew from the Church of
Sweden -to join a separatist group that wanted to continue to use the
1689 Catechism and the 1695 Psalmbok (hymnal) rather than ac­cepting
the 1811 Catechism and Wallin's Psalmbok of 1819. Beckman
taught for two separatist congregations, and, when their pastor left to
become a Baptist, he became the leader of these congregations. A t
this time withdrawing from the Church of Sweden posed difficulties,
and separatist congregations were unstable. When several members
left these congregations, Beckman's employment was affected. O n 26
November 1854 he married Carin Andersdotter.1 3 Swedish law re­quired
that a married man have regular employment, or else he
would be listed as a vagrant. This Beckman was no longer able to
find. One solution to his problem was emigration. He had been
56
reading H e m l a n d e t , D e t G a m l a och D e t N y a , edited by T. N . Hasselquist
in Galesburg, Illinois, as well as letters sent to friends in Sweden by
Eric Norelius, and he knew there was a free Swedish Lutheran church
in America that probably shared his views about the new Swedish
church books.1 4 He believed that in America it would be possible for
him to remain a Lutheran. When, in 1856, his landlord was emigrat­ing
and offered to pay for his and his wife's passage, they accepted.
Arriving in New York on 29 September, the Beckmans went on
to Chicago and then to Red Wing, where they had to wait a week
until Norelius returned from a synod meeting in Dixon, Illinois. After
hearing one of his sermons, which sounded to them as though they
were hearing Luther himself, they decided to join his congregation.
Norelius asked Beckman to preach in Red Wing and then arranged
for him to begin, on 26 November 1856, serving a congregation in
Stockholm, Wisconsin. In 1857 Beckman received a pastoral license
from the Synod of Northern Illinois. He moved to Spring Garden
and Cannon River, Minnesota, in 1858 and was ordained the follow­ing
year. After ten years in Spring Garden and Cannon River, he
resigned and became a traveling home missionary in Minnesota.
Later he followed the frontier farther west until he spent the last years
of his life in Troy, Idaho. In Beckman's autobiography there is no
reference to any formal theological education. He remained through­out
his life conscious of the inadequacy of his preparation but certain
of his call and of the great need for ministers of word and sacrament,
to which need he sought to respond.15
Nothing is known about the parents and childhood of Johan
Peter Carlsson Boreen (also Boren; 1824-1865), except that he was
born in the city of Borås in Västergötland.16 As a youth he became a
carpenter's apprentice. He was concerned for a time about his salva­tion,
and when he gained spiritual clarity and peace he decided that
he wanted to study to prepare himself for some spiritual ministry. By
now he was past school age, but he enrolled in the secondary school
in Skara, where he completed the first six classes. Norelius states that
Boreen was not intellectually gifted, but he was diligent and perse­vering.
After Skara, Boreen spent some time at Ahlberg's School in
Stockholm, where lay preachers were trained. It was there that he
received his call to come to America. Eric Norelius was seeking an
57
assistant for the work in Goodhue County. Since he had been asked
to raise funds for the Scandinavian professorship in Springfield, Illi­nois,
and also had editorial duties, he needed help. He first corre­sponded
with a man in Västergötland, reputed to be a capable school
teacher. This man was unable to accept a call to America but recom­mended
Johan Carlsson, who did agree to come and arrived in 1858.
In Geneva, Illinois, Johan met Erland Carlsson, who suggested that,
since there would soon be too many Carlssons in the synod, he take
the name Boreen from his home town, Borås. A t the meeting of the
Synod of Northern Illinois in Mendota, a committee examined Boreen
in Greek, New Testament, dogmatics, apologetics, church history,
and homiletics, and was satisfied with his answers to their questions.
This says something about what Boreen had studied and learned in
Skara and Stockholm. He was licensed, began his ministry in Goodhue
County, and was ordained in 1859.
Boreen served as Norelius's assistant until 1860. In that year he
married Hilda Kindgren and was called for one year to be Norelius's
successor at Vasa. Unfortunately, the following year the congregation
refused to renew Boreen's call, wanting instead to have Norelius
come back to them. Norelius says that Boreen was sound doctrinally,
but he had personal faults. He was stubborn and did not want to
compromise. He became involved in a controversy about how to
pay a $200 debt owed by the congregation to the General Synod.
The proposal Boreen strongly supported was to sell pews, and this
proposal prevailed 21-12. When, however, some pews were pur­chased
by persons who did not belong to the congregation, members
were left without places to sit, for which they blamed Boreen. He
also found it hard to be on time. He could arrive a half hour late to
a service and would then preach a sermon that his hearers thought
was unduly long.1 7 Boreen was, however, well regarded by his fellow
pastors and was elected to preside at the meeting of 7-9 October
1858 at Chisago Lake, when the Minnesota Conference was orga­nized.
1 8 In 1861 Boreen was called to be pastor in Stockholm, Wis­consin,
where he served until he died of tuberculosis in 1865.
Peter Carlson (1822-1909) was born in Hjortsberga, Småland,
to poor parents, the oldest of five children.1 9 He doesn't tell us how
he learned to read, but does tell of several spiritual awakenings that
58
he experienced. When he was fifteen his father became blind, and
he, the oldest child, had to help support the family as a carpenter.
That year he also learned to play the violin and earned some money
with that skill. A t the age of sixteen he was confirmed. The instruc­tion
was inadequate, though what he learned troubled his conscience
to the point that he felt he was not worthy to partake of the Lord's
Supper. The next year he was caught up in the revival that swept
through Smaland, and for four years he regularly read the Bible. A t
the age of twenty-one, however, he lost his faith and began to live a
worldly life. Though kept from grave sins, he was all the more given
to all sorts of games, telling jokes, dancing, and singing light-hearted
songs, even frequenting taverns, though he says he never drank any
liquor. A t the same time, he took seriously the opinions of strict
pietists in the parish that such behavior was sinful, and in the midst
of a dance would tell himself that he was on the way to hell and were
he to die he would be lost. He married Stina Kajsa Andersdotter at
the age of twenty-six, and for a year he and his wife lived a merry life,
until God used a pious farmer to lead them out of darkness into
God's wondrous light. Peter now began again to read the Bible and
would spend long periods praying. He also read the sermons of Jakob
Otto Hoof, the sermons of the more evangelical Fredrik Gabriel
Hedberg, and Luther's Lectures on G a l a t i a n s , and subscribed to P i e t i s t e n.
His spiritual experiences during this period varied; he could at times
be depressed about his spiritual condition but then later experience
overwhelming joy.
In 1854, when he was thirty-two, he and his wife decided after
much prayer to join a group of thirty emigrants. When the group
arrived in St. Charles, Illinois, about half of them died of cholera,
and Peter's first work in America was to visit the sick and bury the
dead. He met Pastor Erland Carlsson, of Chicago, who was also
serving the St. Charles congregation, and began being a lay reader at
services and also to preach. He wanted to study at the seminary in
Springfield, Illinois, but was not accepted because he was too old and
he had a family. Pastor Erland Carlsson proposed that he be a colpor­teur
in Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota for the American
Tract Society, selling books in four languages: English, German, Swedish,
and Danish. Peter moved his family to La Crosse, Wisconsin, and
59
began his travels, visiting fifteen to twenty families a day, finding out
what books they had, reading the Bible for them, and praying. He
would invite them to attend devotional services he held in the eve­nings.
He also preached at Sunday services. Difficulties of various
kinds and spiritual struggles continued, but he considered them as
God's way of disciplining him. One winter he attended public school
in La Crosse. He also spent some months studying with Erland Carlsson
in Chicago. He was finally licensed in 1858 and began pastoral
ministry in East Union, receiving ordination in 1859. He served both
East and West Union in 1858-71 and East Union alone in 1872-79.
He then became a missionary in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho
during 1879-97, after which he returned to Omaha, Nebraska, to be
a chaplain at Immanuel Deaconess Institute.
Norelius says of Carlson that, though he lacked all formal educa­tion,
he was well endowed in his understanding, also that his earlier
pietism developed into true Lutheran churchliness, without loss of
true pietism. In contrast to Johan Boreen, it was very important to
Carlson that meetings should begin and end on time, and sermons
should not be too long.2 0 For his labors both in Minnesota and in the
Northwest, he is remembered as a tireless frontier pastor among the
founders of the Augustana Synod.
Pehr Andersson Cederstam (1830-1902) was born in Glimakra,
Skane, 14 February 1830.21 His father had died in November of the
preceding year and his mother remarried a year later, though this
marriage proved extremely unhappy. After nine years she left her
husband and thereafter lived as a single parent, providing for her own
and Pehr's support. When Pehr was ten she arranged for him to be
taught one winter by the parish organist and schoolmaster, after
which he was expected to continue his education by himself. His
mother wanted him to become a tailor, though he had no interest in
that occupation. She then found a farmer who needed a swineherd.
Here Pehr spent a year and a half herding swine. He was required to
sleep in a stable and was permitted to come into the farmer's house
only for meals. Pehr's early education ended with three months spent
with a bookkeeper learning how to write and calculate.
When Pehr was fifteen he was able to return to his home parish
to live with his stepfather. (There is no further mention of his mother
60
in the autobiography.) That year he also received confirmation in­struction
from T. N . Hasselquist, who was then assistant pastor in the
Glimakra parish. Pehr regarded this period of instruction as a turning
point in his life. He became spiritually awakened and was sorry when
the confirmation period came to an end, for he feared that influences
from his home and comrades might lead him back into a sinful way
of life. For a time this began to happen, but then Pehr heard a
sermon by another pastor on the last judgment, which so frightened
him that he was again awakened. His new resolve, however, led to
difficulty in his home, where it was said with disapproval, "Pehr has
become a läsare." Pehr, who felt himself called to a strict Christian
lifestyle, was required by his family to leave home so abruptly that he
was unable even to take his clothing with him.
Pehr had now decided to devote his life to serving the Lord and
realized that he needed further education. In 1847, at the age of
seventeen, he began to study in Kristianstad, though he doesn't tell
us how he got the financial support he needed.2 2 After three years, a
nine months' illness interrupted his studies, but following his recovery
he continued studying with three instructors until the spring of 1853,
when he decided to emigrate to America. A t that time he could
have taken the s t u d e n t e x a m e n , which would have qualified him to
enroll at the theological faculty at Lund, but he says that his hatred
of ungodly pastors in the Church of Sweden led him in a separatist
direction. He decided therefore to discontinue his studies and emi­grate.
Upon Cederstam's arrival in New York on 17 July 1853, he met
Eric Norelius, who happened to be in the city just then. Norelius
suggested that Cederstam accompany him to Columbus, Ohio, for
further study at Capital University, but he was not ready for this. For
some months he had contact with Methodists, who claimed to be the
equivalent of Lutheran läsare. He spent some time with the Method­ists,
trying to determine whether this was true or if there were signifi­cant
differences between them and the Lutherans. In Chicago he
sought the advice of Pastor Erland Carlsson, who, knowing that
Cederstam had been confirmed by T. N . Hasselquist, advised him to
go to Galesburg. After coming to Galesburg, Cederstam was also
approached by Baptists, but Hasselquist persuaded him that he should
61
remain a Lutheran. For some months he assisted Hasselquist in the
congregations of his widespread parish. L. P. Esbjorn and Hasselquist,
who examined him, concluded that he did not need further theologi­cal
education. Cederstam was then licensed by the Synod of North­ern
Illinois and sent in 1855 to Chisago Lake, Minnesota, to serve
that congregation, which was waiting for an ordained pastor from
Sweden. Cederstam was ordained on 12 October 1856 in Dixon,
Illinois, and three days later married Johanna Laurentia Le Veau.
Cederstam remained in Chisago Lake and for a time was the only
ordained Lutheran pastor in Minnesota. He succeeded in holding the
Chisago Lake congregation together as they sought to determine
where to build their church, and led them i n its construction.23
While at Chisago Lake he also served on the committee that drew
up the constitution changing what had been Minnesota Territory to
the State of Minnesota.
In 1858 he moved from Chisago Lake to St. Peter and Scandian
Grove. He served there until the Sioux Uprising in 1862, which
caused him to flee with his pregnant wife, as did many others in
Scandian Grove. For a time he was a traveling missionary in Illinois,
but in 1866 his health was broken by the extensive travel this work
required. His wife, Johanna, also later suffered from what became a
chronic illness. Despite what were for him recurring health problems,
from 1867 to 1894 Cedarstam served a number of congregations in
Minnesota, Kansas, and Illinois.
The Chisago Lake congregation, which regarded Cederstam as
an interim pastor between 1856 and 1858, was unsuccessful in its
efforts to secure an ordained pastor from Sweden. Instead, in 1860
Carl Hedengran (1821-1880), of Goddelof in Skane, became their
pastor.24 Carl's father, an organist and teacher, had tried to educate
him and lead him to faith, but Carl was rebellious. When he was
fourteen he found companions who led him into a sinful life, the
details of which he does not explain. Eight years later an older person
from whom Carl borrowed novels offered him books that questioned
the truth of the Bible. He was afraid to look at them at first, but later
read a book about the evil that priests had done in the world.
According to the author, Roman Catholic priests were the worst, but
Carl noted that Lutheran priests in Sweden swore, played cards,
62
visited the theater, and were gluttons, which seemed to him to con-firm
the thesis of the book. He continued to read more such litera­ture.
In 1850, having heard about the discovery of gold in California,
Carl and his wife (whose name is not given) decided to emigrate.
Arriving in America, they decided first to visit Swedish settlements
and got as far as Peoria, Illinois, where Carl worked for a time as a
wagon maker. Later they moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, and then to
the East Union settlement. Here they remained without going on to
look for gold in California. It was at East Union that Carl experi­enced
a drawn-out spiritual struggle. He was in i l l health and afraid
of dying. He began to pray and to read Johan Arndt's S a n n a k r i s t e n d om
(True Christianity). His health improved somewhat, and he sub­scribed
to D e t G a m l a och N y a H e m l a n d e t and read also D e t Rätta
H e m l a n d e t . 2 5 He worried about the fact that his three-year-old daughter
was not baptized and finally proceeded to baptize her himself. His
agonizing struggles continued for quite a long time. He would beg
people to pray for him, but they thought he was simply emotionally
unbalanced and tried to encourage him in other ways. He told his
wife to hide his gun, lest he kill himself.
Norelius visited the East Union settlement in May 1857 and met
Hedengran, who by this time had finally survived his spiritual struggles
and gained peace, though he was fearful that this peace would be
lost. His confidence grew as he read the Bible and Luther's writings.
At Christmas of that year Peter Carlson came to the Union settle­ment.
His preaching led to an awakening that also strengthened
Hedengran. When, in the summer of 1858, Carlson became the
Union settlement's pastor, Hedengran moved farther west in the
settlement and built a chapel where he preached. Later the West
Union congregation was organized and used this building. A t mid­summer
1859 Peter Carlson made a brief visit to Chisago Lake, and
Hedengran accompanied him. When Carlson returned home,
Hedengran remained there, preaching as a layman. In August the
Chisago Lake congregation called Hedengran to be their pastor. He
was licensed that fall by the Synod of Northern Illinois and spent
some time the next spring with Pastor O. C. T. Andrén in Moline to
receive instruction about the duties of the pastoral office. O n 10
63
June 1860 he was ordained at the first meeting of the Augustana
Synod in Clinton, Wisconsin. Hedengran remained in Chisago Lake
for fifteen years, until 1875. He then found it necessary to resign
because of i l l health, so these years at Chisago Lake became the
extent of his ordained ministry.
Andrew Jackson (1828-1901) was born on Tjörn, an island of
the archipelago of Bohuslän, about thirty miles north of Göteborg.26
His parents, Olof Jakobson and Petronella Olsdotter, had eleven
children and were farmers. Others on the island were fishermen.
When Andrew was eleven, a pastor on the island recognized his
aptitude for study. For a year he studied privately with another pas­tor,
who was related to his father. Andrew then left home and
attended school for a year at Marstrand, located on another island,
after which he continued his schooling in Göteborg. He spent four
years in elementary school and then completed about two years of
the g y m n a s i u m curriculum. During the latter part of this period he
was also employed as a private tutor at three estates, the last of
which was the home of a sea captain. In 1852 both of Andrew's
parents died within the space of seven weeks. Though he was almost
ready to take the s t u d e n t e x a m e n and begin university studies at
Uppsala, he decided instead to go to sea with the captain as a ship's
steward.
In New York, however, due in part to disagreement with the
captain, he jumped ship. In part, this was also because he and three
other sailors on the ship were told there was the possibility of more
favorable employment on another ship. To escape detection, the
sailors all changed their names, Andrew changing his from Dahlin, a
name he had taken while studying in Göteborg, to Jackson, an angli­cized
version of Jakobson, his father's name. When he applied for
work on another ship, the captain recognized that he actually had
limited experience as a seaman. After living three weeks in a seamen's
home, having found no work and with no money to pay his bill,
Jackson sold a silk vest and a silk scarf for seventy-five cents, left his
trunk and its contents as some compensation for what he owed for
board and room, and absconded. He found railroad tracks going out
of New York and, having heard of Galesburg, Illinois, decided he
would to walk to Galesburg. A t a station along the way, however, he
64
learned how far that would be and realized that walking there was
impossible. He turned off on a road that crossed the railroad track
and walked for some days, eating apples fallen from trees along the
road and sleeping at night in hay lofts. In his discouragement, one
day he knelt by a large stone and prayed to God—the first time, he
says, he had prayed in this manner. As he continued walking he
came to a brickyard, where he did find work. He was given food and
a place to sleep. The shanty in which he was to sleep was, however,
infested with bedbugs, and he decided to move on. Walking farther,
he found employment at a sawmill, and there he spent five years
working with an Irish and Yankee crew. During this period he learned
to speak and read English. He was promoted until he was finally the
foreman. His strength and ability to defend himself led his fellow
workers to call him Goliath.
During those years he began to attend services, where for the
most part he heard Methodist preachers. After the five years, he
decided to ask for his pay in order to return to Sweden. He was given
a check for $150, but when he tried to cash it in New York, he was
told that the sawmill was bankrupt.2 7 Since he was again without
money, he could not pay for passage to Sweden. He worked for some
weeks as a waiter in a New York saloon. Then, having met Swedish
immigrants from Hälsingland whose destination was Waupaca, Wis­consin,
he decided to join them, traveling with them as their English
speaking guide.2 8 In Waupaca he worked again at a sawmill and for a
few months taught English school. During this period he may have
been influenced by a Norwegian Lutheran minister, who came every
seventh or eighth week to Waupaca. During the other weeks lay-led
devotional services were held, in which Jackson participated as a
reader.2 9 In the summer of 1859, he accompanied some Swedish
families who had sold their farms and were moving to Minnesota.
They stopped first at East Union and then continued their journey to
Kandiyohi County.
Jackson, who had begun to be a lay reader at services in Waupaca,
did this also in congregations the Swedish colonists organized in
Kandiyohi County. For a time he accepted a proposal in the congre­gations
that the services one Sunday be led by the Methodists, the
next Sunday by the Baptists, and the third Sunday by the Lutherans.
65
When, however, Peter Carlson came from East Union to visit the
settlement, he explained to Jackson that it was impossible to join
together Methodists, Baptists, and Lutherans in this way. Carlson
then organized three Lutheran congregations among the Swedish
settlers, and Jackson was elected deacon in all three. He had been
employed in a sawmill but now devoted most of his time to working
with these congregations.
For about three months during the winter and spring of 1860,
Jackson endured a time of intense spiritual struggle about his own
state of grace. A n experienced Christian was sent from East Union to
speak with him, and then brought him to East Union. The Minne­sota
Conference happened to be holding its summer meeting when
they arrived. Getting to know the pastors and listening to their
sermons proved helpful to Jackson. The pastors advised h im to study
with Professor Esbjörn at the seminary just being organized in Chi­cago.
To raise money to pay for Jackson's ticket to Chicago, the
women in the Kandiyohi congregations collected a load of butter,
which was brought to Carver, near East Union, and sold. A t the
seminary, Jackson related very well to Esbjörn and became a leader
among the students. After a year's study, he was ordained on 9 June
1861 at the synod meeting in Galesburg, with a call to the Kandiyohi
congregations. His ministry among them was brief, however, for dur­ing
the Sioux Uprising thirteen adults and six children who were
members of these congregations were killed and the others scattered.
The trauma of the Sioux Uprising did not lead Jackson, like
Cederstam, to leave Minnesota. For about a year he traveled about,
preaching at Minnesota congregations that were without a pastor. In
the summer of 1863 he was called to be the principal of the school
that, after it was moved from Red Wing to East Union, became
known in 1865 as St. Ansgar's Academy. Here he served from 1863
to 1876, when the school was moved to St. Peter and renamed
Gustavus Adolphus College. As principal during those years, Jack­son
did most of the teaching. Courses taught were Christianity, Swed­ish,
English, American history, geography, arithmetic, writing, and
singing.3 0 Norelius wrote the following evaluation of Jackson's com­petence
as a teacher: "He is very active and diligent in his call, and
particularly attentive to his duties. However he is too dry as a school-
66
teacher, but that's his nature."3 1 Another evaluation was given by
Carl A . Swensson, the founder and president of Bethany College:
"Pastor Jackson, the first rector, was father and patriarch among his
students, an able teacher, a pious Christian, a real humanitarian, for
whom it was comparatively easy to maintain order and discipline."32
Jackson was a modest man and fully conscious of the limitations of
his academic preparation. His successor, when the school moved to
St. Peter, was Jonas P. Nyquist, who had training and experience as a
teacher in Sweden. Jackson, while principal at St. Ansgar's Academy,
was also pastor of the West Union congregation. Here he chose to
remain from 1876 to 1889. During the years 1890-92 he traveled
raising money for Gustavus Adolphus College. His final call was to
the Rush Lake parish in 1893, where he served until his death in
1901. Norelius tells us that Jackson was married twice, first to Kristina
Swenson, of Beckville, Minnesota, with whom he had three children,
and then, after Kristina's death, to Lovisa Peterson, of Cannon River,
Minnesota. No dates are given, however, for these marriages or for
Kristina's death.33
Readers may be wondering how it was possible for these pastors
to provide the leadership that the congregations in Minnesota needed
during those early years. A part of the answer is that among them
was Eric Norelius (1833-1916), the youngest of their number, born
26 October 1833 in Hassela, Hälsingland.34 His early education be­gan
in his home at the age of six, when his father taught him to read.
By the time he was eight, under the guidance of a neighbor he had
memorized the catechism, including the explanatory Bible verses.
During the winters of 1842-43 and 1843-44, Eric was influenced by
the awakening in the parish led by lay preachers. He became con­cerned
about his salvation and shared in the spirit of the revival. For
six summers, from the time he was nine till he was fifteen, he herded
goats and sheep in the mountains, and for five of those winters he
watched charcoal kilns. During his confirmation instruction in the
fall of 1847, he was concerned about how to find peace with God,
how to get forgiveness of sin. His pastor, whose instruction did not go
far beyond requiring memorization, advised him, "Go to the Savior
in prayer; watch and pray, watch and pray." U p to this time, Eric says
that he had been seeking salvation by works rather than through
67
grace, but in the summer of 1848 he found some helpful books. He
read A R e f u t a t i o n of the D o c t r i n e of W o r k s and a Defense of the Gospel, by
Fredrik Gabriel Hedberg. After also reading Luther's Lectures on
G a l a t i a n s and The Book of C o n c o r d , he began to feel that he under­stood
the great principle of justification by faith.
During the winter of 1847, when Eric was fourteen, he attended
the parish school for some weeks, where he studied arithmetic, geog­raphy,
and Latin, mainly by himself. Later that winter, Eric continued
to study his Latin grammar while watching charcoal kilns. His teacher
had noted Eric's aptitude for study and informed his father that he
should be given the opportunity for further education. In 1848 Eric's
father arranged for him to enter the g y m n a s i u m in Hudiksvall. Eric
made rapid progress because he already knew a great deal of Latin.
After two years he was about ready for the s t u d e n t e x a m e n , but he did
not feel that his family's financial resources would enable him to
continue his study at the university. A rather large group from his
parish, led by a wealthy farmer, had decided to emigrate, and Eric
and his older brother decided to join to them. After a four-month
voyage they arrived in New York on 31 October 1850, four days
after Eric's seventeenth birthday. A n example of the confidence the
immigrant group had in Eric was their choice of him to determine
how much each one of the company was to receive when their
Swedish money was exchanged for American money. Having done
this, Eric went to a Wall Street bank, exchanged the money, and
carried several thousand dollars in gold in a little leather pouch back
to the ship.35
The group then left New York and spent three weeks traveling to
Andover, Illinois, where Eric met Pastor Lars Paul Esbjörn. En route
he asked clergymen he met for advice about how he might prepare
himself for pastoral ministry. In New York, Olof Hedstrom, on the
Bethel Ship, had told him that he could become a Methodist minis­ter
at once, for all that was required was to be converted and fear
God. In Chicago, Gustaf Unonius proposed that he study at Nashotah
House in Wisconsin and become an Episcopal priest. In Andover,
Esbjörn advised him to study at Capital University in Columbus,
Ohio. Norelius was determined to remain a Lutheran, but it took
some time for him to make up his mind to go to Columbus. He
68
visited Galesburg and Moline, and for a few months during the
winter he worked on a farm near Moline and also attended a rural
school. He met Esbjörn a number of times when Esbjörn visited the
congregation he had organized in Moline. In the spring of 1851
Norelius decided that he would go to Columbus. He traveled there
with Esbjörn, who was on a trip east to try to raise money among
German- and English-speaking Lutherans for building churches for
Swedish immigrants in Illinois. Arriving at Capital University, Norelius
studied there for a total of three years, the first two in the college.
In the summer of 1853 Norelius went to New York, hoping to
meet his parents, who had also decided to emigrate. When their
arrival was delayed, he went to Chicago, where he taught school for
several months of the fall and winter. He spent the summer of 1854
in Minnesota with the Chisago Lake congregation and then returned
to Columbus for a year of seminary studies. In 1855 the Synod of
Northern Illinois persuaded him to terminate these studies and be
licensed. He was sent to congregations in Indiana, where he served
one year. He had already been in Indiana, where, in West Point, he
met his future bride, Inga Lotta Peterson. In his autobiography Norelius
tells us of their engagement, but not of their marriage on 10 June
1855.3 6 He was ordained on 12 September 1856 by the Synod of
Northern Illinois, and, responding to a call from Minnesota, Eric and
Inga Lotta came to serve two congregations in Red Wing and Vasa.
A n important factor in Norelius's development as a church leader
was his relationship with Lars Paul Esbjörn. Esbjörn arranged for
Norelius's study at Capital University and accompanied him on the
journey from Moline to Columbus. From that time on, they corre­sponded
with each other. In a theological journal he edited Norelius
published letters he had received from Esbjörn from 21 August 1851
to 18 February 1869, the last letter written from Sweden about
sixteen months before Esbjorn's death on 2 July 1870.3 7 Though
Esbjörn was twenty-five years older than Norelius, they addressed
each other as colleagues. In some respects Esbjörn was Norelius's
mentor, but on certain issues, such as the doctrine of justification,
relations with other denominations, and what confessional loyalty
required, Norelius felt that he could advise Esbjörn. Comparing
Esbjorn's preaching in 1850 with a sermon he heard in 1854, Norelius
69
noted improvement in Esbjorn's presentation of the Lutheran doc­trine
of justification.3 8 In 1856 Norelius found that there had been a
change in Esbjorn's thinking, from an earlier pietism that stressed the
experience of new birth to greater confidence in the power of the
sacraments of baptism and holy communion. Commenting on Esbjörn's
statement in a letter dated 30 January 1856 that he was willing to
admit baptized persons to holy communion, even if they had not
told him that they had been born again, Norelius writes, "What a
remarkable change since 1850 and 1851!"3 9 Apropos of relations
with other denominations, Norelius did not approve of the fact that
Esbjörn had been supported at first by the American Home Mission
Society. He also disagreed when, in defense of the presence of the
Swedish pastors and congregations in the Synod of Northern Illinois,
despite that synod's doctrinal laxity, Esbjörn wrote, "Truth is invin­cible,
not when it stands and speaks at a distance, but when it comes
into contact with error."4 0 While Norelius respected Esbjörn greatly,
he was somewhat more conservative and, at the same time, had
considerable self-confidence, which he needed in the leadership roles
he later had to fill.
During Norelius's long ministry, though he served for short peri­ods
elsewhere, he lived most of the time in Vasa. In 1860-61 he
traveled with a blind horse through central Minnesota as a home
missionary, organizing congregations. Returning to Red Wing and
Vasa in 1862, he founded in Red Wing what became Gustavus
Adolphus College and Vasa Children's Home in 1865. In the early
years, when the Minnesota Conference met three times a year and a
new chairman was elected for each meeting, Norelius held this office
several times. In 1870 it was decided to elect a president for a one-year
term. Norelius was the first to serve under this rule and was
reelected until 1874, when he became president of the Augustana
Synod. He served in this office in 1874-81 and again in 1899-1911.
He edited and wrote for several periodicals. There were also years
when he suffered from i l l health. Once, to recover, he was sent on a
missionary trip to the West Coast. He recovered also by staying
home in Vasa, where he wrote, among other things, what became his
1,400-page, two-volume history.4 1 Throughout his long career he
had the confidence of the leaders in Illinois, but also represented
70
effectively the interests of the Minnesota Conference.
CONCLUSION
As is evident from their biographies, the way in which the first
Minnesota pastors became prepared for ordination differed greatly
from how the five first pastors in Illinois met the qualifications for
ordination in the Swedish dioceses of Uppsala, Lund, and Växjö.
While all of the early Augustana pastors had been influenced by the
nineteenth-century Swedish lay revival, the first Minnesota pastors
came directly out of it. With the possible exception of Jackson, it was
their struggle to be assured of their own salvation that led them to
think of devoting their lives to pastoral ministry. A l l of them passed
through times of spiritual struggle and gained theological insight from
such struggles. In their preaching, their chief concern was to make,
individuals conscious of their need for salvation. Their hearers knew
that they needed assurance of salvation, for life was uncertain and
could end suddenly. Emigrants had died on the voyage across the
Atlantic, and upon their arrival in America, deadly cholera awaited
many of them. The Minnesota pastors preached the law to make
people aware of their sins, and to those who came to such an aware­ness
they proclaimed the good news of God's forgiveness freely granted
through Jesus Christ. In their own experience they knew, however,
that it wasn't easy to come to clarity in one's understanding of the
gospel. Rather than theological textbooks, they read the Bible, and
they also read sermons and devotional writings by pietist authors
such as Johan Arndt, Fredrick Gabriel Hedberg, Jacob Otto Hoof,
and Carl Olof Rosenius. They also read Luther and The Book of
C o n c o r d . In the case of Norelius, this reading of Luther and the
Lutheran confessions gave him such confidence that he regularly
included in his diary critique of sermons he heard.42
The difference between the Minnesota and the Illinois pastors
must not be overemphasized, but the former were more closely iden­tified
with the people they served in terms of their backgrounds and
their level of educational attainment than were the university-trained
pastors in Illinois. To a greater extent than in Illinois, one found in
Minnesota a piety nurtured by the reading of P i e t i s t e n , edited by
71
Rosenius. This contributed to M i n n e s o t a anden, the Minnesota spirit.
Another important factor in the ministry of the Minnesota pas­tors
was its predominantly rural setting. There were, of course, rural
congregations in Illinois, such as Andover, Knoxville, Pecatonica,
and Wataga; but there were also, prior to 1860, congregations in
Chicago, where the population in 1860 was 112,172, and in other
urban centers with significant populations: De Kalb (1,708), Galesburg
(4,953), Geneseo (1,792), Moline (2,027), Rock Island (5,130),
Princeton (2,473), and Rockford (6,979).43 Of the thirteen congre­gations
that organized the Minnesota Conference in 1858, on the
other hand, only three were in communities that in 1860 were in any
sense urban: Red Wing (1,156), St. Paul (10,401), and St. Peter
(972).4 4 What is even more remarkable is that the other ten congre­gations—
Cannon River, Chisago Lake, East and West Union, Marine
(now Elim, Scandia), Scandian Grove, Spring Garden, Stockholm
(Wisconsin), Vasa, and Vista—are still rural. A l l of them are located
in the open country, with the exception of Chisago Lake, where the
1993 population was 451.4 5 Of Minnesota's three urban congrega­tions
in 1858, the congregation in St. Paul, for various reasons, grew
very slowly. In 1870, when the population of St. Paul was nearly
30,000, First, St. Paul had only forty-three communicant members.46
This rural setting must have influenced the mindset of the Min­nesota
pastors, making them more conservative, their people less
affected by the temptations of city life. When they met at synod
meetings with Illinois pastors, they were aware that they could be
regarded as country cousins. There were hardships connected with
rural life at that time. Homes in Minnesota were more often rude log
cabins. Roads and railroads were not yet well developed. There was
more poverty in the early years in Minnesota than in Illinois. The
Minnesota pastors suffered also from physical illnesses, which may
have been related to the fact that they had to endure frontier condi­tions
more severe than those that the pastors in Illinois encountered.
At the same time, the Minnesota pastors were convinced that the
Lutheran Church had an important future in Minnesota. By 1858
they had only begun to organize congregations in a small part of the
state. They expected many more Swedes to come to settle on lands
that in so many ways resembled their Swedish homeland. Nor did
72
these pastors limit their vision of the future to Minnesota. Beckman
and Carlson, in their later ministry, moved much farther west.
The Minnesota spirit, therefore, made the Minnesota pastors refuse
to be fenced in by Augustana Synod leaders like Hasselquist, who
thought that the synod's institutions should be centralized in Illinois.
For a time there was thought of establishing a Minnesota Synod that
would have been comparable to the Synod of Northern Illinois.
Instead, the Minnesota Conference was organized, with the under­standing
that it would be one of the conferences of a Scandinavian
synod, which was not organized until 1860. Minnesota wanted its
own school which, as long as it was still an academy, sent its gradu­ates
to Augustana College and Seminary, but after 1890 Gustavus
Adolphus College was a feeder only to the seminary. Norelius made
various efforts, with mixed success, to establish a church paper in
Minnesota. Over the years such papers as Minnesota P o s t e n , L u t h e r sk
K y r k o t i d n i n g , Skaffaren, and M i n n e s o t a S t a t s Tidning followed each other.
Only the last of the four was successful and survived until 1940.47
Insofar as Norelius was involved in these ventures, efforts were made
to bring him to Illinois as editor of H e m l a n d e t in 1859 and as editor
of A u g u s t a n a in 1889-90, but he kept returning to Minnesota.48
That Norelius was one of the early Minnesota pastors contrib­uted
both to the strength of the Minnesota spirit and to what eventu­ally
became its harmonious relation to the Augustana Synod. He was
one of the twelve pastors who met on 5 June 1860 at the Norwegian
Jefferson Prairie Church near Clinton, Wisconsin, to organize the
Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Augustana Synod in North
America, and it was he who proposed that it be known as the
Augustana Synod.4 9 Insofar as the residence of the president became
the center of the synod, for nineteen years that center was in Vasa, as
Norelius served in this office longer than any other Augustana Synod
president. It was as synod president that he spoke at the synod
convention of 1876 against a proposed constitution that would have
divided the synod into district synods, each synod having the power
to ordain. Though the constitution had been adopted at its first
reading in 1875, it was decisively defeated in 1876.50
In 1935 P. O. Bersell, upon being elected president of the
Augustana Synod, not only moved his residence from Ottumwa,
73
Iowa, to Minneapolis, but also established the synodical headquarters
in a suite of offices at 2445 Park Avenue in Minneapolis. By this
time, despite the Rosenian heritage that still flourished in Minnesota,
several generations of Augustana pastors, in whichever conference
they served, had almost all studied at Augustana Seminary in Rock
Island and now shared what was in most respects the same piety. As
far as issues of polity and organization were concerned, the synod was
now centered in Minnesota. The spirit of independence in Minnesota
could therefore be left to become a part of the synod's history.
ENDNOTES
1. Lily Setterdahl, "Peter Cassel's New Sweden," in Peter Cassel & Iowa's
N e w Sweden, ed. H . Arnold Barton (Chicago: Swedish-American Historical
Society, 1995), 11-30; G. Everett Arden, Augustana Heritage (Rock Island:
Augustana Book Concern, 1963), 23-26.
2. Conrad Bergendoff, The Augustana Ministerium (Rock Island: Augustana
Historical Society, 1980), 14.
3. Emeroy Johnson, A Church Is Planted (Minneapolis: Lutheran Minnesota
Conference, 1948), 32-34.
4. Ibid., 1-10; Bergendoff, 15.
5. Emeroy Johnson does refer to "the spirit of independence in Minnesota"
in Eric N o r e l i u s , Pioneer Midwest Pastor and C h u r c h m a n (Rock Island: Augustana
Book Concern, 1954), 166.
6. Eric Norelius, T. N . Hasselquist, Lefvnadsteckning (Rock Island: Lutheran
Augustana Book Concern, n.d.), 63-64.
7. This suggestion was made by Dr. Theodore Conrad in a private conver­sation
at his apartment in Minneapolis, 13 May 1998. Rev. William J. Hyllengren,
who grew up in Vasa, Minnesota, agrees at this point with Dr. Conrad (private
conversation at Normandale Lutheran Church, Edina, Minn., 25 April 1999).
8. Eric Norelius, De svenska luterska församlingarnas och svenskames historia i
A m e r i k a , vol. 1 (Rock Island, Lutheran Augustana Book Concern, 1890), here­after
Historia.
9. Annual volumes of Korsbaneret were published by the Augustana Book
Concern, which contained biographies of deceased Augustana Synod pastors.
Brief biographies of Beckman, Boreen, Carlson, Cederstam, Hedengran, and
Norelius are also to be found in Oscar N . Olson, The Augustana Lutheran C h u r ch
in A m e r i c a , Pioneer Period 1846 to 1 8 6 0 (Rock Island: Augustana Book Concern,
1950), 371-80.
10. Yngve Brilioth, S v e n s k k y r k o k u n s k a p , 2d ed. (Stockholm: Svenska kyrkans
74
diakonistyrelses bokförlag, 1946), 275-78.
11. Beckman's biography is found in Norelius, Historia, 682-95, and Norelius,
"Peter Beckman," K o r s b a n e r e t 37 (1916): 135-43.
12. Hemlandssånger (Rock Island: Augustana Book Concern, 1892), no. 99.
13. The name of Beckman's wife was gotten from his great-great-grandson,
Dr. Peter Theodore Beckman. In Beckman's autobiography, which Norelius uses
in both his Historia and the obituary in K o r s b a n e r e t , Beckman tells of his mar­riage
but does not give the name of his wife. The Beckmans had seven children,
five of whom died at an early age. The other two are named. Anders Peter died
while a theological student at Augustana College, while Ferdinand lived to
adulthood and was postmaster in Troy, Idaho. Historia, 684; K o r s b a n e r e t 37,142.
Bergendoff's Ministerium, 15, also fails to give the name of Beckman's wife, as
does the death notice in Augustana 60 (11 February 1915): 1111, where Mrs.
Beckman is said to be in good health and soon to be eighty-eight years of age.
14. The Augustana Synod did not adopt the 1819 Wallin Psalmbok, but
instead used the 1849 Thomander-Wieselgren revision of that Psalmbok. Allan
Arvastson, D e n Thomander-Wieselgrenska psalmboken (Stockholm: SKDB, 1949),
177-221,305-9.
15. Historia, 687, 689.
16. Norelius gives biographical information on Johan Boreen in H i s t o r i a ,
655, 661-62, 669-74. Norelius's funeral sermon for Boreen, the first Augustana
pastor to die, is found in Det Rätta H e m l a n d e t 10 (1965): 70-74.
17. Historia, 661-62.
18. For biographical information about Peter Carlson, see Historia, 712-34;
P.M.L. (Peter M. Lindberg), "Pastor Peter Carlson," Korsbaneret 31 (1910): 178-
94.
19. Tidskrift för Svensk Ev. L u t h . Kyrkohistoria i N . A m e r i k a och för teologiska
och kyrkliga frågor, E. Norelius, ed. (Rock Island: Lutheran Augustana Book Con­cern,
1899), 133.
20. Tributes at the time of Carlson's death by Norelius and G . K. Wm. Dahl,
Augustana 54 (26 August 1909): 670-71.
21. For biographical information about Cederstam, see Historia, 568-73,
575-81; Norelius, "Teol. dr. Pehr Anderson Cederstam," K o r s b a n e r e t 24 (1903),
129-44; Augustana 47 (31 July 1902): 488.
22. A number of questions can be asked about Cederstam's autobiography.
With respect to his experience as a swineherd, Norelius states that a young boy
could be treated this way in Sweden in the 1840s (Korsbaneret, 131). Pehr tells
of an older brother, Anders, who also emigrated and died in Wataga, Illinois, 26
January 1874 (Historia, 575). One wonders whether Anders had similar experi­ences.
After the first references to Pehr's mother, she is mentioned no more. Was
she living with Pehr's stepfather when he was permitted to come home at the age
75
of fifteen? Could she have agreed to his being driven out because of his pious
zeal two years later, without even being able to take his clothes along? Norelius
says that Pehr had a small inheritance (Korsbaneret, 131), but was this enough to
support him during six years of study?
23. Johnson, A Church Is Planted, 35-37.
24. For Hedengran's autobiography, see Historia, 587-97.
25. Historia, 591.
26. Norelius mentions Andrew Jackson only once in his Historia, but he has
written an extended account of Jackson's life in "Dr Andrew Jackson," Korsbaneret
23 (1902): 160-98. See also Doniver Lund, Gustavus Adolphus College, A C e n ­tennial
History 1 8 6 2 - 1 9 6 2 (St. Peter: Gustavus Adolphus College Press, 1963),
21-24.
27. Before leaving New York he authorized an innkeeper whom he trusted
to collect what might be due him from the bankrupt sawmill. Several years later
he received a registered letter addressed to him at Scandia, Carver County,
Minn., containing fifty dollars. K o r s b a n e r e t 23 (1902): 168.
28. H i s t o r i a , 591.
29. Lund, 22; Korsbaneret, 171,
30. Lund, 23, 27.
31. Ibid., 24.
32. C. A . Swensson, Vid hemmets härd (Stockholm: Bohlin & Co., 1897),
549.
33. Swenson, 198. The names of the three children were Hanna, Esther, and
Josef Ansgarius.
34. For the life of Eric Norelius, primary use has been made of his own Early
Life of Eric Norelius ( 1 8 3 3 - 1 8 6 2 ) , A Lutheran Pioneer, trans. Emeroy Johnson
(Rock Island: Augustana Book Concern, 1934); see also Johnson, Eric Norelius;
G. R. (Gustaf Rast), "Eric Norelius," Korsbaneret 38 (1917): 169-79.
35. Norelius, Early Life, 105.
36. Ibid., 245-49. For the marriage, see Johnson, Eric N o r e l i u s , 45.
37. Norelius, Tidskrift, 244-354.
38. Norelius, "Personliga hågkonster af L. P. Esbjörn," Tidskrift, 363,365.
39. Norelius, 284-85; Historia, 180-81.
40. Norelius, 272-74; Norelius, Early Life, 254.
41. The first volume has been cited above. Volume 2 was completed shortly
before his death and published by the Augustana Book Concern in 1916.
42. Norelius, Early Life, 179-80, 183.
43. Ninth Census, vol. 1, Statistics of the Population of the U.S. (Washing­ton:
Government Printing Office, 1872), 108-21.
44. Ninth Census, vol. 1, 176-82. The figure given for St. Peter is that of
Oshawa Township, in which St. Peter is located. Not until 1970 is St. Peter
76
listed, with a population of 2,117.
45. 1993-94 Official Minnesota Highway Map.
46. Johnson, A Church Is Planted, 52.
47. Johnson, Eric Norelius, 69-72,152-62, 193-98.
48. Johnson, Eric Norelius, 72, and Bergendoff, 15.
49. Sam Rönnegård, Prairie Shepherd, Lars Paul Esbjörn and the Beginnings of
the Augustana Lutheran Church, trans. G . Everett Arden (Rock Island: Augustana
Book Concern, 1952), 265-67.
50. Johnson, Eric N o r e l i u s , 166-67, 231.
77